Intelligence Dominance: Are We There Yet?
 Intelligence dominance of the battlespace is critical to operational success for U.S. forces in Iraq. The elimination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a demonstration of America’s ability to collect and develop actionable intelligence. But full-spectrum dominance is still an unachieved goal.
Intelligence dominance, the comprehensive understanding of the adversary’s capabilities, operational concepts, and intentions, allows commanders to identify exploitable opportunities, gain surprise, provide security, and control the territory from which the enemy wishes to operate. This kind of understanding requires both deep and broad knowledge of adversaries, especially unconventional ones. Everything about them must be uncovered: Who are their leaders? How do they communicate? How do they travel? How do they coordinate activities? Where do they acquire their weapons, build their IEDs? What are their plans, and how do they intend to carry them out? What are their weaknesses?
Technology has great value in tracking closely held information, but intelligence experts contend that it cannot begin to compare with the effectiveness of human intelligence. HUMINT allows eyes and ears to penetrate the adversary’s organization, to read subtle cues that give up more than can be detected by electronic surveillance. The collection of this kind of information is done on a local basis, block to block, village by village, until a detailed profile of daily life in the area is completely illuminated. Basic intelligence includes detailed information on all the key community, political, and religious leaders in a geographical area, how they relate to one another and the population, how the networks of the society and its financial systems are used by the adversary. Small changes in the dynamics of a community can signal important developments.
The drawbacks in the gathering of human intelligence are that it takes time and costs money. Intelligence operatives must receive extensive training, know the language and culture, and be prepared to stay for a long period of time. The pool of Americans who speak Arabic and Farsi is not deep. Development of that asset is vital and will remain so in the future. Because few Americans can blend into Iraqi society, much less tightly locked terrorist cells, operatives must rely on relationships with trusted community members. Those relationships are necessarily built over time with frequent contact.
Small teams, drawn from specialists within the Defense Intelligence Agency, have been using those tactics for some time in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet commanders in the field still suffer from a shortage of precise information with which to shape operations. Sometimes vague references to cells that might be operating within an ill-defined geography may be all the information that is available for a commander assigning duties to a unit patrolling in Baghdad. Dominance remains elusive, possibly, say some familiar with the landscape, because what is called for in order to achieve the goal is a force of 5,000 or more boots on the ground, dividing the battlespace into small chunks, and giving each team an area of responsibility over which it gains complete intelligence awareness. Such a force, say many in the field, would destroy the enemy’s ability to maneuver, but without it, access to actionable intelligence will be erratic.
|