Panetta Defends Intelligence Operations

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

KABUL, Afghanistan  – Declining to discuss details about a U.S. RQ-170 drone aircraft that went missing in Iran, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta defended the use of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft to protect the United States.

During a joint news conference here today with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Panetta called the drone program part of an effort “to not only protect Afghanistan, but to protect the United States.”

“These are operations I will not discuss publicly,” the secretary said, “other than to say that, part and parcel of our effort to defend this country and to defend our country involves important intelligence operations which we will continue to pursue.”

Speaking with reporters earlier this week en route to Djibouti, the secretary also called it “appropriate” that President Barack Obama has asked Iran to return the drone, but admitted, “I don’t expect that will happen.”

Panetta said it’s difficult to know how much engineering know-how the Iranians will be able to obtain from parts of the downed drone in its possession.

“I don’t know the condition of those parts. I don’t know exactly what state they are in,” he said. “So it will be a little difficult to tell exactly what they are going to be able to derive from what they have been able to get.”

Panetta also told reporters the United States is developing a strategic relationship with the Afghan government but it has no intention of maintaining permanent bases in Afghanistan.

DOD Releases Report on Progress in Afghanistan

The October 2011 “Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan,” a biannual report to Congress in accordance with Section 1230 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Public Law 110-181) as amended, was provided today to Congress.

It is posted at http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/October_2011_Section_1230_Report.pdf .

Face of Defense: Officer Recalls WAC Era

By Jon Connor

Deputy Commander-Regional Support, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, June 28, 2011 – The 1970s probably seem like a long time ago for today’s new soldiers, but for one officer serving in Afghanistan, the era is still a vivid memory of when female soldiers were treated differently than men.

Army Lt. Col. Kimberly Marlowe is reminded of that time whenever she glances down at a gold ring she wears on her left hand. The ring is a symbol of her time as a member of the Women’s Army Corps.

“We are a dying breed,” said Marlowe, 53, who is deployed here with Regional Support Command-South, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan. Marlowe serves as the command’s transition officer for geographical and institutional functional areas.

When not deployed, Marlowe is an environmental quality analyst for the Military and Veterans Affairs Department in Grayling, Mich.

On her ring is a depiction of Pallas Athena, the insignia of the Women's Army Corps. Athena is a Roman and Greek goddess associated with a variety of womanly virtues. Athena, along with the traditional “U.S.” was selected for the lapel uniform insignia -- cut out for officers and placed on discs for enlisted women.

The Women's Army Corps began as the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps in 1942, in the early part of World War II, but was shortened to WAC within a year. Its first director was Oveta Culp Hobby, a prominent society woman from Texas.

A physical training manual, published by the War Department in July 1943, aimed at bringing the female recruits to top physical standards. The manual begins by stating their responsibility: “Your Job: To Replace Men. Be Ready To Take Over.”

While most military women served in the States during the war, some served in Europe, North Africa and New Guinea.

The thousands of women that served during World War II enabled the equivalent of seven divisions of men to fight. Army Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that "their contributions in efficiency, skill, spirit, and determination are immeasurable."

Women mainly served in administrative and nursing positions. During the Vietnam War women could only be in their 20s to serve in theater, Marlowe said. In 1972, 56,000 women were serving in the Army.

After the Vietnam War ended, much had changed in American society. The Army had changed, too, and recognized that the concept of having a separate women’s corps was outdated.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., began accepting female cadets in 1976. That year, 119 women were admitted. Four years later, 62 graduated and paved the way for more to follow.

The Women's Army Corps “dissolved because of equal opportunity,” Marlowe said. “The 60s and 70s were huge in women’s equal rights.”

In October 1978, President Jimmy Carter abolished the WAC -- women and men now would train together and be treated as equals regarding promotions, assignments and military protocol.

“The WAC had a lot of history," Marlowe said. "It just felt like that was being taken away.”

Yet, ending the WAC “was a good thing,” Marlowe said.

“Men and women started training together,” she said. “Women were taken more seriously. The men got to see them doing the same training they did.”

After completing 11th grade, Marlowe said she was sick of school and quit in 1975. Her mother told her to finish school or join the military. After earning her GED, that’s exactly what Marlowe did in November of that year.

“When I came in, I was a 17-year-old kid who hated school,” Marlowe said. The Army, she added, pushed her to excel.

Marlowe decided to become a military policewoman. “I just thought it would be fascinating,” she said.

Marlowe’s first three years in the Army were in the WAC. She served in Wurzburg, Germany, when the Army was still using the quarter-ton jeep.

After three years of active duty, she opted for National Guard duty, serving in the engineering field where she stayed for nearly two decades. She then left engineering and joined the 46th Military Police Command.

In 1989, Marlowe enrolled in Officer Candidate School after it was suggested to her.

“As an officer, maybe I could do more,” she explained. Fifteen months later Marlowe was commissioned as an officer in the Army’s engineer branch.

Marlowe also went onto earn a bachelor’s degree in fisheries and wildlife management in 1998 from Lake Superior State University, Mich. In 2006, she received her master’s degree in organizational management from Spring Arbor University, Mich.

In 1999, Marlowe was named the first female to command an engineer company -- an Assault Ribbon Bridge company -- in the Michigan Army National Guard.

“I learned a lot,” she said. “I had great soldiers working for me.”

In 2004, Marlowe transferred into military intelligence, and also taught Officer Candidate School for three years. She deployed to Iraq in 2008 and served in Mosul, Baghdad and Taji as a combat engineer adviser.

When she isn’t in uniform or at her civilian job, Marlowe runs a 20-acre farm breeding horses. She currently has 13 horses and two donkeys.

She also plans to stay in the National Guard until 2015 and then retire with 40 years of military service.

Looking back, Marlowe knows she’s come a long way -- a private running a traffic control point in Germany to a lieutenant colonel traveling the world.

“I’ve had a wonderful ride with this," she said. "There’s a lot of pride in this for me. For a kid coming up now, the opportunities are endless.”

Marlowe knows this firsthand. She has three children, with a son in the active-duty Army serving in Hawaii as a utilities equipment repairer. He was deployed in Bagram, Afghanistan, when Marlowe was in Iraq.

Marlowe’s choice of both an Army and civilian career has allowed her to experience the “best of both worlds,” she said.

However, “once you’re a soldier, you’re always that soldier,” she said.

Mission Afghanistan: Analysts in the War Zone

Part 6: Turning Information Into Intelligence

Intelligence analyst Courtney C. had been in Afghanistan only a few days when she saw firsthand the value of her work in the war zone.

“We got a report from the military that a person of interest had been picked up in one of the provinces,” said Courtney, who joined the Bureau five years ago. Information was needed about the individual’s possible connection to terrorist activity, but the only thing to go on was a passport number and a few personal items he had with him.

In a matter of hours, using law enforcement and military records and additional resources, she and others were able to collect and analyze a range of information and provide investigators with a more complete picture of the man’s identity—including a pattern of what seemed to be suspicious activity related to the movement of money.

Gathering and analyzing information—whether about a terrorist threat or a criminal enterprise—is exactly what intelligence analysts do every day across the FBI’s many investigative programs. But in the war zone, there is often a greater sense of urgency because lives can hang in the balance.

“Everything’s a lot more immediate here,” said Courtney, who is based in one of our Midwest offices but recently began a four-month assignment in Kabul. “You need to push things out a lot quicker, because there are real-time implications if you don’t.” The timely dissemination of intelligence, for example, can have an immediate impact on the safety of troops on the ground.

The FBI’s top investigative priority is to protect the homeland from terrorist attack. The ability to collect intelligence in the war zone—in a cooperative effort with our U.S., Afghan, and other international partners—is critical for our domestic security as well as keeping our people on the front lines safe. Intelligence analysts play a critical part in that process.

“We are information brokers,” Courtney said. “Our role is to take information and give it context. The intelligence we gather from a variety of sources is pushed out to investigators in the field and to our partners, where it can be integrated into operations.”

In Afghanistan, just like at home, intelligence comes from many places—open sources like newspapers and the Internet, military and law enforcement databases, and citizens providing tips, to name a few.

When it comes to counterterrorism matters, the cycle of collecting, analyzing, and sharing intelligence is intensified and compressed. “In the war zone, we are at the razor’s edge of knowledge creation as it relates to a lot of terror threats,” Courtney said. “Information we collect here today could save lives on the front lines and at home. Knowing that makes everyone work that much harder.”

Beyond the intense pace—“No two days are the same here,” she said—there is also the satisfaction of working with a dedicated group of people who care deeply about the FBI’s mission in the war zone.

“Most of us are here for four months,” she explained. “It’s 120 days to make a difference and to contribute. I see it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Next: Establishing a presence in the war zone.

Gates: Bin Laden Intel Required Prompt Action

By Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2011 – While acknowledging concerns about intelligence leading up to the May 1 raid that killed 9/11-attack mastermind and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called President Barack Obama’s decision to move forward “gutsy.”

“I was very concerned,” Gates said in an interview that aired tonight on the CBS program "60 Minutes." “Frankly, I had real reservations about the intelligence.”

Gates told CBS correspondent Katie Couric he worried that bin Laden was not even in the compound and that American lives were at risk, noting the intelligence was circumstantial.

Still, the secretary said, it likely was the best lead the Defense Department and White House had on bin Laden’s whereabouts in a decade. “I think everybody agreed that we needed to act, and act promptly,” he said of Obama’s national security team.

Gates praised Obama’s decision to move forward with the operation despite the lack of certainty in the intelligence, calling the results a game-changer in the war in Afghanistan.

“This is one of the most courageous calls, decisions, that I think I’ve ever seen a president make,” said Gates, who has served eight presidents in his public life. “For all of the concerns I just talked about -- the uncertainty, the intelligence, the consequences of it going bad, the risk, the lives of Americans involved -- it was a very gutsy call.”

Although it’s still too early to tell whether bin Laden’s death will affect troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, Gates said, “I think we could be in a position by the end of this year where we have turned the corner in Afghanistan and more troops could come home.”

Gates explained that the militant Taliban could reconcile with the Afghan government by year’s end, and the past 18 months of progress could ensure that neither the Taliban nor al-Qaida re-emerges as a threat in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan is only part of Gates’ historical tenure as defense secretary. When he retires later this summer, he noted, will have overseen wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at some of the most promising and doubtful periods of each war. And through it all, he said, his highest priority was to ensure the safety of troops by making sure they had what they needed to accomplish their mission.

“If you’re in a war, and kids’ lives are at stake, you do whatever is necessary to protect them and help them accomplish their mission,” Gates said, explaining his decision to spend more than $40 billion on the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle designed specifically to protect occupants from roadside bombs. The MRAP, he noted, has saved thousands of lives.

“I think of [troops] as my own sons and daughters,” he said. “I’m the guy that signs the piece of paper that sends them. I’m the guy that signs the condolence letters. I’m the guy that visits them in the hospital.

“It’s very emotional for me,” he continued. “They are the best. I want the parents, the wives, the spouses to know that I care about every single one of them.”

(Editor's note: This version corrects an inaccurate quotation contained in a previously posted version, in which the word "outrageous" was inadvertently used in place of "courageous.")

Brigade Leaders Cite Value of Intelligence

By Karen Parrish

American Forces Press Service

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan, May 2, 2011 – Intelligence is indispensible for soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team in the counterinsurgency fight here.

For the “Currahee” brigade soldiers, operations in Afghanistan’s Paktika province hinge on the information they can gain about the enemy.

“This is my ninth operational deployment,” said Army Lt. Col. Darrin Ricketts, deputy brigade commander, “and I’m a huge proponent of ‘intelligence drives maneuver.’”

Ricketts said that as a battalion commander in Iraq in 2007 and 2008, he beefed up his battalion and company intelligence shops.

“If you don’t know what the enemy is going to do, what he’s thinking [and] where he’s going to move, you can’t kill or capture him,” he said. “And that’s what the infantry’s mission is: close with and destroy the enemy.”

A counterinsurgency fight is a multidimensional, “three-block war,” Ricketts said, which traditionally means combat, peacekeeping and humanitarian aid operations, and in current doctrine is defined as “clear, hold and build.”

“Intel drives maneuver, and in a [counterinsurgency] fight you have to apply the same thinking to the civilians,” he said. “What are they thinking? What are they going to do? It’s a whole other dynamic.”

The brigade has a series of targeting meetings designed to link intelligence with operations, Ricketts said, including a weekly targeting meeting, a two-week targeting cycle and a monthly governance and development targeting session.

“Intelligence plays a huge role and is the first part of all those targeting processes,” he said.

The synthesis of intelligence and operations has improved over the course of his career, Ricketts said. “We get better all the time,” he added. “Intelligence is always a top priority. You’re always trying to get more assets, more resources. You can never have enough.”

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates -- a former CIA director -- and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the CIA after his military retirement, have emphasized the importance of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technology to the fight in Afghanistan. Gates said in March the number of certain surveillance systems in theater had increased over the last several months from a few dozen to more than 60.

Army Capt. David McKim, the 4th Brigade’s assistant intelligence officer, said Currahee forces are well equipped with intelligence assets. “This is a very unique brigade,” he said. “We have probably just about everything that you get your hands on.”

McKim said when he first began intelligence work at the battalion level, “you really didn’t have capabilities. You didn’t have systems [integrated with] the national level.”

Battalion and brigade-level intelligence capabilities became more robust after Sept. 11, 2001, gradually acquiring the ability to tap into national databases, he said.

“It definitely helps, because that’s where you [can] look at an enemy in near-real time,” he said. “That’s truly where you help a commander make decisions as an intel professional, because you see what’s going on, you can [research] historical activity, and then you can provide some advice to the commander that hopefully, if you’re spot-on, can help save lives.”

McKim said a key challenge of the counterinsurgency fight is reflected in Sun Tzu’s adage that the enemy “swims in the sea of the people.” Intel professionals, he explained, constantly sift through the population’s behavior patterns to identify activities that indicate hostile intent.

“That’s truly the end-state for any intel professional: find the bad guys, predict what they’re going to do, and hopefully, get the units to stop those activities before they happen,” he said.

When he was a battalion intelligence officer in Iraq, McKim said, there were resources he wished he had, particularly more people.

“We [now] have a lot of personnel at the brigade level,” he said. “And then each battalion intel shop has a lot of people. Back in the day, there were times when battalion [intelligence professionals] would be one intel officer and maybe one enlisted [soldier], and those were the only two you had. So definitely, having more resources helps in the fight.”

McKim said he saw the push for increased intelligence resources gain strength in Iraq when Petraeus was in charge there.

“A lot of his policies trickled down to us –- I remember the big push on getting counterinsurgency training during that time,” he said. “I’m of the mindset that any commissioned officer has to be as knowledgeable as they can, particularly about military history. It’s so cyclical; it comes back around.”

Intelligence professionals’ breadth and depth of knowledge is key to their successful performance, McKim said.

“You have to know a lot in order to make accurate predictions on what the enemy is going to do,” he explained. “Part of what General Petraeus was doing was making sure that as an institution, intelligence … had the tools to do that. Ours is definitely a thinking game.”

McKim said while current intelligence-gathering technology is impressive, it’s no good without analysts who can interpret the data.

“We work with a really intelligent enemy,” he said. “You hear all the time that most of the less intelligent insurgents are dead. Now, we’ve got the really smart ones who have been doing this business for a while.”

The networks that oppose coalition forces and Afghanistan’s government are “a warrior society,” McKim said.

“They pass down their [tactics, techniques and procedures] and lessons learned, just like we do,” he added. Predicting what those forces will do is the nuts and bolts of intelligence, he said.

“If we can do that,” McKim said, “that helps the commanders to make better-informed decisions when they’re conducting their operations.”

Intelligence-gathering technology has improved quite a bit in recent years, McKim said.

“The Army has taken great strides in the rapid fielding of equipment,” he said. “You get new systems, you get new techniques, … but there’s so much information out there.”

McKim said the idea that “every soldier is a sensor” still holds true, and that a woman soldier on a female engagement team could be the person who learns a critical piece of information.

“That one thing might be the key to opening up why people are fighting in a particular area,” he said.

Ultimately, intelligence operations are aimed at the overall International Security Assistance Force objective in Afghanistan, McKim said -– helping the Afghans to establish an effective security structure.

“You model it, you get them trained up, and you have them take ownership of it so that they’re the ones who are responsible for their security,” he said. “I think that’s what led to the Taliban taking over when they did –- [the people] didn’t really have a security network in Afghanistan to protect themselves.”

New Afghan Network Supports Coalition Sharing

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md., March 9, 2011 – A new network that promotes information and intelligence sharing among coalition partners in Afghanistan is improving situational awareness and laying a foundation for future coalition operations, an official involved in standing up the network said.

The Afghan Mission Network, slated to reach full operational capability this summer, gives the United States and 45 partners in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force the opportunity to link up over a common mission network, Richard Wittstruck, chief engineer for the Army’s Program Executive Office – Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors, told American Forces Press Service.

That’s a first for the alliance, he explained, enabling members to share mission-related data that previously had been restricted to their individual secure networks.

Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, former commander of U.S. and ISAF forces in Afghanistan, and U.S. Central Command headquarters pressed for the common network to better manage command and control and share intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information, Wittstruck said.

When it reached initial operating capability last summer, the network was typically used to enable coalition partners to share calendars, meeting announcements and other administrative details and to interface through chat rooms and “whiteboarding” sessions.

But as the United States began posting operational information, including data from its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sources, Wittstruck said, coalition partners began following its lead.

“People began sharing things they had never shared before,” he said. “Now, everyone sits back and says ‘Wow, look at what we didn’t know about the complete picture. Now look at how much better we all are in doing this.”

This new collaboration gave battlefield commanders an unprecedented level of situational awareness. “If I’m a commander on the ground, I want to know everything that is going on in my area of responsibility,” Wittstruck said. “I would like access to what everybody has collected in that area of responsibility and get a complete picture of the threat.”

But getting the U.S. framework in place to support the network took a herculean effort by Wittstruck’s organization as well as Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications – Tactical.

Immediately after receiving the requirement, engineers deployed to Afghanistan and Qatar to work through the technical challenges of standing up the U.S. component of the Afghan Mission Network, called the Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System ISAF, or CX-I.

Unlike the Secret Internet Protocol Router network, or SIPERNET, that by law is restricted to U.S. users, the CX-I provided a forum for sharing mission-critical information.

Anxious to get the new system going, McChrystal ordered the migration of mission-critical data to the new CX-I system in January 2010, also designating that the first Army unit, the Army’s 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, be fielded with the new network equipment that spring.

Within four weeks, the team had engineered, procured, fielded, configured and installed all the necessary equipment. Much of it was configured using commercial, off-the-shelf components already in the inventory, saving $10 million at the first unit alone.

The team’s rapid response in filling the gap in electronic data-sharing earned them the prestigious 2010 David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award.

Gratifying as the award may be, Wittstruck said, the bigger reward is recognizing the new capabilities the network brings warfighters on the ground. As it supports them, the Afghan Mission Network will have an impact on future coalition missions that lasts long past the mission in Afghanistan, he said.

“We think it is going to be the point of departure for future operations,” Wittstruck said. “You will be able to scratch out ‘Afghan’ and just say ‘X’ Mission Network. And wherever we go next in a coalition campaign, something like that will probably stand up.

“It’s a fundamental change in the way we conduct operations, and we’re very proud of that,” he said.

Precision Important to Intelligence Analysis, Pace Says

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

Feb. 14, 2007 – The difference between facts that can be proven and ideas that can be deduced through logic must be clear to users of military intelligence, Marine Gen. Peter Pace said today. Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with reporters traveling through the U.S. Pacific Command theater with him about Iranian complicity in killing American servicemembers in Iraq.

He said it is important "to be very precise about what you do know for sure and what you do not know for sure."

"What we do know for sure is Iranian made weapons are killing our guys," the chairman said. "What we do know for sure is that in raids to disrupt those (bomb-making) networks inside of Iraq, we have found Iranians. And we know for sure that the Iranian government knows for sure that we found Iranians."

These are facts, Pace said. These are things the military can prove.

"What we do not have intelligence on is who precisely and what level in the Iranian government knows and is giving orders or not giving orders" he said.

"Do I believe the Iranian government is involved? Yes. Do I have a smoking gun that proves that? No. And that is why I want to be very precise," the chairman said. "Iran should get involved in stopping Iranian weapons and Iranian people inside Iraq."

When the military analysts transition from definable, undisputed fact and take it to a logical conclusion, "we should be careful to point out where what we can prove ends and what we believe begins," he said.

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