{
  "id": "98-495",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "98-495",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 105151,
      "date": "1998-05-21",
      "retrieved": "2016-05-24T20:54:07.584941",
      "title": "Intelligence Collection Platforms: Satellites, Manned Aircraft, and UAVs",
      "summary": "Imagery--photographs or electro-optical transmissions similar to television--is a key component\nof\ncontemporary military planning and operations as well as civilian decisionmaking. This report\nprovides an overview of the various imagery collection platforms, their strengths and limitations, the\nevolving organizational relationships that govern their use, as well as the steps Congress has taken\nto strengthen imagery capabilities. \n  Imagery allows military commanders to undertake operations using precision-guided munitions\nwith minimal civilian and friendly casualties; it also has a wide variety of civilian uses, providing\noverhead perspectives of environmental changes, natural disasters, or activities, such as mass burials,\nthat foreign entities wish to hide.\n  Imagery is collected by satellites, manned reconnaissance aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles\n(UAVs). Satellite programs, initiated by the Intelligence Community in the midst of the Cold War;\ncontinue to be uniquely valuable but remain costly and commercial satellite imagery, now becoming\navailable, may render some Government programs redundant. Manned reconnaissance aircraft\ncontinue to be widely used (as U-2s fly over Iraq), but the Defense Department and the services have\noften been reluctant to acquire replacement planes, preferring to invest scarce funds in bombers and\nfighters. UAVs are promising and potentially cost effective, but acquisition programs have been\nfrustratingly slow and few operational systems are currently available despite a decade of efforts. \n  Often critical of the executive branch's management of imagery, Congress has shaped the\nacquisition of collection platforms through a number of initiatives. It has encouraged the\nprocurement of larger numbers of smaller satellites that can be used more flexibly than the Cold War\nsystems. It has urged the services to retain or acquire manned reconnaissance aircraft, a message that\nthe Defense Department appears to have received. The potential of UAVs has been appreciated for\nsome time, but the slow pace of acquisition programs led Congress to mandate the establishment of\na centralized effort in 1993. When, however, difficulties persisted, many Members called for the\nDefense Airborne Reconnaissance Office to be abolished, a step that the Pentagon intends to take\nby October 1998.\n  Efforts to acquire and utilize imagery are complicated by two major factors in additional to\ninevitable budgetary considerations. The first is technological; imagery acquisition systems,\nespecially UAVs, are not mature systems. They are subject to trial-and-error experimentation,\ncancellations, delays, and cost overruns. The second is organizational; imagery collection and\nanalysis involves a number of agencies, inside and outside the Department of Defense, and\ncoordination is complex and difficult. Furthermore, imagery is produced in response to the disparate\nand not inevitably compatible requirements of Washington decisionmakers and military\ncommanders. Congressional oversight is undertaken by a number of different committees. Taken\ntogether these factors make imagery an especially important and difficult issue for policymakers in\nboth Congress and the executive branch.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": false,
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          "encoding": null,
          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/98-495",
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      ],
      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Foreign Affairs",
    "National Defense"
  ]
}