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Subject:
Why the demise of Strategic vs Tactical Army Intelligence
macawman
12/10/2003 11:27:49 PM
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"A ghost is haunting Operation Iraqi Freedom ? the ghost of U.S. Army intelligence. Like Hamlet?s father at Elsinore Castle, the ubiquitous MI specter travels across Iraq in a dusty trench coat, trying to warn the Army. The haunting figure delivers the same message every bloody day and every mortar-strewn night: ?You destroyed me years ago, and the heinous effects will continue unless you change MI branch now!?
The death of Army Intelligence actually began in the mid-1970s, but its ultimate demise would take years, forcing the branch to linger in agony like a terminal cancer patient. During 1975-76, congressional hearings chaired by Sen. Frank Church and Rep. Otis Pike dissected alleged intelligence abuses during the Cold War. The country was struggling through the endgame of the Vietnam War and many in Washington were looking for scapegoats. As often happens, the first victim was the intelligence community and its military counterparts.
The Church Committee hearings would become a catalyst for the dismemberment of the CIA?s and Army Intelligence?s human intelligence (HUMINT) operations across the globe. The decisions made in the 1970s would have disastrous implications for the national security of the United States, playing a major role in the success of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and to our problems in Iraq today.
Included on Church?s target list was Army Counter-Intelligence. Highly integrated in domestic surveillance operations with the FBI during the 1960s, Army CI was accused of violating the civil rights of Americans during undercover operations that had penetrated radical groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Weather Underground. CI soon lost much of its power to the newly-formed Defense Investigative Service.
For their own reasons, Army leaders watched the Church and Pike hearings with a gleam on their faces. They finally had their chance to neutralize a branch of the Army that they had long believed was filled with weirdoes and intellectuals.
In a 1974 memorandum from Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Frederick Weyand, Callaway wrote of Army intelligence, ?We maintain considerable information which is of questionable value. It raises serious questions as to the cost effectiveness of our intelligence system.?
Under serious pressure from the top levels of the Pentagon and federal government, a panel called the Intelligence Organization and Stationing Study (IOSS) concluded that Army intelligence was focusing too much of its resources on outdated HUMINT and CI efforts. The IOSS panel also concluded that the Army Security Agency could be scrapped and that the branch?s primary mission would now focus on tactical intelligence. Under charges that MI had not ?supported? commanders in Vietnam, it was believed that a primary concentration on tactical intelligence would ?finally support the commander in the field.?
Army leaders as a whole seem to have been ecstatic about MI?s self-immolation. A press release from USAREUR HQ remarked, ?MI is fighting its way back to acceptance by the Army. Restoring the ?spook? image must be avoided.? What the leaders of MI and the Army had forgotten was the vital role that HUMINT had played in past conflicts. How would we win future wars, particularly guerilla struggles, without the proper amount of human intelligence? Over a decade later, in 1987, Maj. Gen. Julius Parker, the Chief of Military Intelligence, stated, ?Army intelligence has arrived.? In actuality, it had been terminated.
A year later, in the fall of 1988, I would soon have a first-hand look at the MI Frankenstein monster that the Army had created. During my first 24 hours at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., I noticed that the branch was suffering from some type of traumatic identity crisis.
The new buzzword was ?tactical.? Everything and everybody at Huachuca was now tactical. As I drove down a road on the base, I saw a company of ?the new MI? soldiers conducting a grueling road march into the Huachuca Mountains. Nearby, a platoon was scattered across the horizon on a land navigation exercise. I began to wonder if I had taken a wrong turn and ended up at Fort Benning?s Infantry School.
While waiting for my security clearance to be processed, I was detailed on casual duty to the Office of the Chief of Military Intelligence. At that time, the MI Chief was Maj. Gen. Parker. My month-long stay at MI headquarters was an eye-opener to the ?Great Leap Forward? that Army intelligence had taken. MI?s new motto was, ?Always out Front,? a slogan that many soldiers in the combat arms branches thought was absolutely hilarious.
When I finally started MI classes, I realized the terrible truth. As a young 2nd lieutenant, I would be assigned to either a maneuver battalion or a Combat Electronic Warfare Intelligence Battalion (CEWI), which was MI?s new bastardized version of the old Army Security Agency. Our instructors imbued in us the idea that the old HUMINT-oriented MI was evil because it didn?t support the commander. And, the new and improved MI was good because it was ?tactical.?
We were supposed to accept some form of universal guilt for alleged wrongs done by MI people during the Vietnam War. Strangely, even the senior officers ? the men who had been in MI during the Vietnam era, mouthed the party line. Like brainwashed martinets they intoned the mantra, ?Human intelligence is horrible, tactical intelligence is superb, we are now supporting the commander.? It was all very Orwellian.
After escaping from Huachuca, I was assigned to the 4th Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment in Germany. It didn?t take me very long to realize that MI people, under the guise of ?serving as tactical intelligence officers,? were being wasted in S-2 and G-2 slots throughout the Army.
While on field exercises, I discovered that combat arms officers were actually much better at reading terrain than MI officers. They also knew just as much about enemy vehicle identification and order of battle as we did. Why weren?t they doing the job as they had done in the past?
The rallying cry in maneuver units at the time was ?Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield? (IPB). This primarily consisted of coloring a map overlay to signify ?go? or ?no-go? terrain. I discovered that I had gone to intelligence school for six months so I could color a map with a green marker. The MI officer was never more wasted than at a Grafenwoehr Training Area rotation, where the primary responsibilities of the S-2 were arms room security and weather forecasting.
Apparently, the government had spent $50,000 dollars on my Top Secret/SCI clearance so that I could brief the commander that there would be fog in the morning.
MI was able to glide through the 1980s while maintaining the Potemkin Village facade that its new focus on tactical intelligence was successful. That facade was blown to smithereens on Aug. 2, 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The intelligence community had been watching Iraq?s buildup along the Kuwaiti border for days. Through the use of national imagery means, we knew exactly what Saddam was massing.
Unfortunately, because the Army didn?t have HUMINT assets in the Middle East, we had no idea about Saddam?s intentions. And that is the lynchpin to the whole argument. Without HUMINT, you have no idea of what the enemy?s intentions are.
Twenty-four hours before attacking, the Iraqis also went to radio silence, which prohibited our multi-billion-dollar SIGINT systems from monitoring anything but air and space dust. Throughout Gulf War I, the ghost of MI haunted Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf?s basement labyrinth in Riyadh. The CINC reportedly went ballistic on numerous occasions after discovering that human intelligence briefed to him had actually emanated from CNN.
The Army?s new CEWI SIGINT battalions proved to be utterly worthless during the war. Since the Iraqis were using landlines instead of radios, the CEWI people did not have a mission to conduct. What was Army intelligence?s contribution to Desert Storm? Not very much: its best and brightest were scattered across the desert landscape in an array of armored personnel carriers while the CINC lacked key information about the intentions of the Republican Guard.
The final death knell to the branch occurred in 1995, when the few remaining Army HUMINT assets were assigned to a new DoD organization, the Defense HUMINT Service (DHS). It was hoped that the DHS would centralize all HUMINT operations formerly run by military intelligence organizations. Since Army intelligence was devoting very little effort to HUMINT, the DHS seemed like a perfect solution. Unfortunately, it constituted the death knell of organic Army HUMINT operations because it took control completely away from Army officers and put it in the hands of civilian bureaucrats at the DHS.
The problems the Army is experiencing in Iraq today can be attributed to a multitude of military intelligence failures since Operation Just Cause in 1989. A recent study from the Center of Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth concluded that the Army did not have enough HUMINT assets during the invasion of Iraq last spring. It also found that junior MI officers did not understand the complexities of intelligence gathering and that even captains ?lacked advanced analytical capabilities.?
The current phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom cannot be won with intelligence gleaned from UAVs and satellites. It cannot be won with conventional troops conducting ?Cops? raids in the middle of the night. It cannot be won by dropping 500-pound bombs on an elusive enemy.
Several things must happen immediately if we are to be successful in Iraq. First, the Army should mount a massive and rapid program to recruit HUMINT assets in the country. The proud and capable conventional soldiers who won the initial phase of the war should be sent home. More Special Forces, Rangers and Delta Force troopers must be brought into the country for counterinsurgency operations.
Meanwhile, MI must begin to change the failed culture that has permeated the branch for almost 30 years. It must stop sucking up to and trying to placate the combat arms branches. MI is not and never will be a combat specialty. The Army should stop wasting MI officers by assigning them to S-2 and G-2 slots. These are jobs that combat arms officers have performed brilliantly in past conflicts.
I believe that forty percent of all MI personnel should be involved in covert and overt HUMINT collection efforts. Twenty percent of the branch?s personnel should be involved in counter-intelligence. Another twenty percent of MI should focus on SIGINT. Since the National Security Agency (NSA) controls the nation?s SIGINT efforts, it would be logical to bring back the old ASA structure. In the past, the ASA had worked directly for the NSA, which enabled it to receive and send timely and accurate intelligence. This system actually supported the commander better than the SIGINT battalions that are assigned to maneuver divisions today.
The last twenty percent of MI?s personnel should focus on Imagery Intelligence (IMINT). Finally, MI should once again send all of its male second lieutenants to the Infantry Officer Basic Course. While there, they can learn true leadership and tactical skills. Therefore, MIOBC can completely focus on intelligence aspects. Although females are needed for certain HUMINT operations, their overall role in MI branch should be reviewed.
It is highly probable that the war on terrorism will continue for many years to come. Like Lazarus, the dead MI branch must be resurrected in its original format. If Army leaders fail to make these needed changes, the service will continue to struggle with chronic intelligence failures that jeopardize its ability to carry out the landpower mission. "
Ray Starmann served as a U.S. Army officer in the military intelligence branch during 1988-93 including service in Operation Desert Storm, and is a high school history teacher in Santa Monica, Calif. He can be reached at saber2bravo@earthlink.net.
macawman (former MI WO)response:
I do not find anything distorted with Starman's analysis of the current MI situation from his point of view. But going back to the NSA/ASA 'stovepipe'intelligence distribution system would be quite wrong. The NSA's security (green door)policy of cutting out the regular Army from tactical intelligence gleaned by its own Army ASA units in Vietnam was a 'nail in the coffin' for strategic ASA MI units in the Army. So now it appears that the pendulum is swinging from tactical MI towards a more strategic direction for the US Army's Military Intelligence corps.
Here is a response from a former MI officer with a lot more time in MI than the above Captain:
I am amazed that a 2LT just arriving at Ft Huachuca would notice much of anything except "Hey, where are those trees with sticky things on them? Ouch!" Rehashing the old "Things were better back then" is ridiculous. When I came in, even MI units were rife with druggies, thieves and malcontents. And by the time of Desert Shield/Storm, MI accross the board was better capable of giving the field commander timely, practical intel. If we could have replaced all of the ground SIGINT assets with interpreters and CI agents, that would have been great. If we could have weeded out and dropped all of the politics-playing incompetents onto Baghdad, that would have been better, and less painful than a drawdown. (I had a crew from INSCOM doing SIGSEC monitoring for me, since I had no other assets, and their NCO whined continually about how they needed to go to a critical mission in Daharan. Unfortunately, their LT was learning from the wrong NCO. Fortunately, my officers backed me up when I delayed their departure.)
The reason MI went down (but not out) are many.
A. MI in the field was not always responsive to the field commander. I recall a story an Armor officer told me of coming on a bunker hit by VC mortars. Two oddities: The MI folks in the bunker claimed to have had foreknowledge of the event, 2 days prior. AND The NCO in the bunker would not let uncleared folks into his bunker to assist in evaluating wounded. Maybe not true, but I have heard enough other stories to belive it.
B. MI folks geared their intel and analysis to the level they were supporting, and did not think about the grunt in the field. (Of course, REMFs of all branches have the tendency to do that.) And the higher level the commander, the less analysis MI attempted. Analysis was limited to reporting what happened the previous day, and a listing of what the enemy commander might do. (I had one general tell his staff during an exercise: "Tell me the truth. Don't lie to me. G2, you don't have to do that." He was willing to let us risk making a stab at what might happen in the future instead of just relaying what had happened in the past.)
C. MI officers would take advantage of education programs to get MBA, and did not focus on stuff that would help them in their MI jobs: History, Language (Don't make this seem like a hit on just MI officers: A lot of NCOs played the same game. I know one senior NCO who was never in a tactical unit, and seemed proud of it.)
D. The CEWI concept gave a lot of MI officers the chance to compete for Co/Bn/BDE CMD slots, without having to leave the safe confines of an MI slot. Competition creates politics, creates avoiding making waves, creates re-inventing the wheel, creates kow-towing to branches with more senior officers. I do know one mustang, who did not want company command. He did care about provided his commander valid, timely intel. Obviously, that meant he would have to leave the Army once he was passed over for promotion to major.
E. Green Door syndrome.
F. CI means super-secret agent spy. (That is what I think is the author's issue. It is simplistic to say we didn't have HUMINT assets on the ground in Iraq. As long as we were training the Iraqis and Iranis, we did. They just might not have been in uniform. But maybe 1% of all Army personnel would be able to sneak around Middle East countries and get anything more than an extra breathing outlet in their throats. And only 1% of those could have made it past any vetting process for the really secure grooups. So, the author couldn't be a spy, and went home. The captain who got passed over DID do some HUMINT stuff in SWA, and only stopped because of the strain on his family.)
G. Defense industry (Old Crow Association) discovered there was gold in them thar MI fields, which could automate collection and analysis. But, since making and updating overlays was beyond machines, intel officers and NCOs could do that (and rather prettily.) They just couldn't think.
H. Since female service school grads could not be put into combat arms units, male service school grads had to be allowed into intel. And, it is hard to get rid of an incompetent officer (of any gender) who is covered by the West Point Protective Association.
I. Good Idea Fairy met the Uninvented Wheel.
J. MI would not admit that a non-MI person could have anything to add.
K. Security regs meant for the office were applied to the battlefield.
L. Like other branches, MI officers and NCOs shirked from hardship tours. They either wriggled (snakelike) out of tough assignments, or took their expensive training and education, and went home. When we offer someone $50,000 in tuition assistance for a 4-year tour, we are asking for trouble. You can't create very many good intel professionals in four years.
M. Only rarely did CIA/ NSA, etc all get together to cooperate. (I had a contact at the European branch of NSA who opened doors for me to get stuff locally which I couldn't have begun to ask for through channels. She actually was also a reservist supporting our DISCOM, and ended up deploying with us. But, I had better contact with Canadian national intel resources than I did with even USAREUR.)
That is not to say MI is a cesspool. There are hundreds of smart, capable, dedicated people who understand the need to provide intel "for the commander." I was amazed how well a group of almost randomly selected MI captains could be forged into a team capable of training more dedicated, capable intel lieutenants. But being an MI professional means staying dedicated, forgetting about putting personal advancement over professional achievement.
So, what would I do?
a. Teach: Some analysis required.
b. The answer may not be in the box.
c. Computers don't think.
d. Yes, train all intel officers in another combat arms/combat support field.
e. Do not make company command a pre-requisite for promotion.
f. Have all MI officers rated by combat arms officers when serving in combat arms units.
g. Remember that sometimes intel is for the Commander-In-Chief, and need not be tactical.
h. Let the S6/G6 report what happened in the last 24 hours. Let the S2/G2 help to intrepet it.
Enough. I have to go home. But anybody who purports to understand the successes and failures of MI ought to have spent a significant amount of time in it.
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