The collection of information within the Intelligence Community is broken down into five disciplines designed to leverage the full array of community resources against a particular problem set. Now that you\’ve learned the capabilities and limitations associated with each discipline, you are now going to be given an opportunity to apply each of the disciplines to a problem set currently facing the IC.
Beginning in the 1970s, the Shah of Iran began construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr. Although his overthrow in 1979 delayed Irans timetable for completing the plant, the newly established Islamic Republic turned to Russia and China to revitalize their program. Over the next 25 years, Iran eventually completed the Bushehr Nuclear Plant and to the dismay of International Atomic Energy Agency, United States, Israel, and Europe, embarked on a covert operation to reprocess uranium for use in a nuclear weapon. When coupled with Irans stated desire to destroy Israel, their ability to build and deploy nuclear weapons via their advanced Shahab surface to surface missiles represents a significant threat to U.S. national security.
Based on the course readings, website reviews, and personal research, identify how OSINT can be leveraged to collect information related to Irans efforts to indigenously build a nuclear weapon. For example, if you were trying to collect OSINT, what specific resources (i.e. web sites, periodicals, newspapers, etc.) would you target and what type of information would you expect to collect? In order to answer this question, you will not only have to look at this issue from the perspective of an intelligence collector but also conduct additional research to identify potential leads. To get you started, Ive listed three excellent OSINT websites describing Irans covert nuclear program.
