Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell

At Booz Allen Hamilton’s headquarters in McLean, Virginia, the firm’s vice presidents specializing in intelligence oversee two types of contract: offer two types of services: training executives and supplying critical systems to the agencies. Virtually all of the latter call on its services: NSA, DIA, CIA, FBI, NRO, and NGA (see graph). Even IARPA, the newly- established R&D unit of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), relies of the firm’s technology assessments.

As the new director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, Lisa Porter is the United States' answer to James Bond's Agent Q, but she's not crazy about the label. Porter is not the kind of person who likes being reduced to an easy metaphor, nor does she want her agency's intelligence work reduced to easy metaphors. That makes her the perfect head of the new agency, which has been tasked with developing technologies so far out that not even the Defense Department would fund them.

The Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai controls just 30 per cent of the country, the top U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, speaking after meeting top military officials here on Saturday, said Pakistan faced an escalating terrorist threat that could affect the United States, but he also underscored the limitations of what Washington could do about it.

The top two U.S. intelligence officials traveled secretly to Pakistan this month to press President Pervez Musharraf to allow the CIA greater latitude to operate in the tribal territories where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militant groups are all active, according to several officials who have been briefed on the visit.

China and Russia are spying on the United States nearly as much as they did during the Cold War, according to the top U.S. intelligence official.