TheNational Intelligence Agency (Spanish:Agencia Nacional de Inteligencia) is theChilean government national intelligence agency. Created in 2004, its mission is to coordinate, and advise the President on, intelligence. It is attached administratively to theMinistry of the Interior. ANI's budget is approximately US$4 million.[2]
The history of the Chilean intelligence services originates in the early nineteenth century, when a Military Secret Service was created to conduct special operations. Its most notable work was during theWar of the Pacific, when it carried out several successful missions. These were recreated in a very popular military novel inChile,Adiós al Séptimo de Línea, by Jorge Inostroza Cuevas.
The services were restructured when theChilean Army was professionalised with the support of the Prussian army, creating theDirección de Inteligencia del Ejército (Army Intelligence Directorate), orDINE. In parallel, the Navy and the Air Force created their own services (Naval Intelligence and the Intelligence Service of the Air Force).
During the military dictatorship ofAugusto Pinochet, theDirección de Inteligencia Nacional (Directorate of National Intelligence), orDINA, was also created, directed especially to combat the leftist parties and movements (Socialist,Communist andMIR). Its first director was ColonelManuel Contreras. This institution was dissolved in 1977 to create its replacement, theCentral Nacional de Informaciones (National Information Centre, or CNI), which performed the same tasks as the DINA. The CNI was dissolved in 1990.
The ANI was established by Law No. 19974 of 2004, establishing roles, rules, and the secrecy with which it operates. Its highest authority is the director, responsible for the exclusive trust of the president.[clarification needed]
The agency, according to 2006 regulations, has a staff of approximately 125 people.[citation needed]
It is the legal continuation of the Directorate of Public Security and Information (DISPI, popularly known asThe Office orLa Oficina in Spanish) and the Intelligence Directorate of the Defense Staff of National Defense (DID), the Intelligence Directorate of the Armed Forces and the intelligence directorates or Headquarters of the Forces of Order and Public Security, or the Carabineros and the Investigations Police of Chile.[3]
Its main task is to carry out work on political intelligence[clarification needed], as part of the intelligence system of the State of Chile, and complementing the work of the Military Intelligence Directorate of the Armed Forces ofChile and the police intelligence units of both theCarabineros de Chile and theInvestigations Police of Chile.
According to the Chilean Government, the ANI does not engage in espionage.[4]
