The General Security Directorate (GSD) (مديرية الامن العامة, Mudiriyat al-Amn al-Amma) was the intelligence agency of Iraq. It was announced by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi at a press conference in July 2004 in a climate of widespread violence by terrorist groups and the Iraqi insurgency. Although details on its organisation were not made clear at the time, the General Security Directorate's designated mission was to "infiltrate and annihilate Iraq's tenacious insurgency".