Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan
Jack Linthicum
citation and punch up the printing command. http://www.cnas.org/node/3924
Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in
Afghanistan
Author(s): Major General Michael T. Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger,
Paul D. Batchelor
Type of Publication: Working Papers
Date: 01/04/2010
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Download the Full Working Paper (PDF)
This report critically examines the relevance of the U.S. intelligence
community to the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. The
authors - Major General Michael T. Flynn, Deputy Chief of Staff for
Intelligence in Afghanistan; his advisor Captain Matt Pottinger; and
Paul Batchelor, Senior Advisor for Civilian/Military Integrations at
ISAF - argue that because the United States has focused the
overwhelming majority of collection efforts and analytical brainpower
on insurgent groups, the intelligence apparatus still finds itself
unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which
U.S. and allied forces operate in and the people they are trying to
protect and persuade.
Quoting General Stanley McChrystal, the authors write that "Our
senior leaders - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the
Secretary of Defense, Congress, the President of the United States -
are not getting the right information to make decisions with ... The
media is driving the issues. We need to build a process from the
sensor all the way to the political decision makers."
This report is the blueprint for that process. It describes the
problem, details the changes, and illuminates examples of units that
are "getting it right." It is aimed at commanders as well as
intelligence professionals in Afghanistan, the United States and
Europe.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in
Afghanistan
About the Authors
Major General Michael T. Flynn has been the Deputy Chief of
Staff, Intelligence (CJ2), for the International Security Assistance
Force in Afghanistan since June 2009. His previous assignment
was Director of Intelligence, J-2, for the Joint Staff at the
Pentagon. He has three decades of experience as an intelligence
officer. He can be reached by email at michael.t.flynn@
afghan.swa.army.mil.
Captain Matt Pottinger is serving in Kabul as an advisor
to Major General Flynn. He was the 2009 winner of the
Lieutenant Colonel Michael D. Kuszewski Award for Marine
Corps Intelligence Officer of the Year. He can be reached by
email at matthew.f...@afghan.swa.army.mil.
Paul D. Batchelor, of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s
Senior Executive Service, is currently serving at ISAF
Headquarters as Senior Advisor for Civilian/Military
Integration. He has served as the DIA’s advisor to the
Secretary of Defense and as manager of current and
crisis intelligence support to the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs. He can be reached by email at paul.d.batchelor@
afghan.swa.army.mil.
By Major General Michael T. Flynn, USA
Captain Matt Pottinger, USMC
Paul D. Batchelor, DIA
J A NUA R Y 2 0 1 0
Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence
Relevant in Afghanistan
JANUARY4 2010
This paper, written by the senior intelligence officer in Afghanistan
and by a company-grade officer and a senior executive with the Defense
Intelligence Agency, critically examines the relevance of the U.S.
intelligence community to the counterinsurgency strategy in
Afghanistan. Based on discussions with hundreds of people inside and
outside the intelligence community, it recommends sweeping changes to
the way the intelligence community thinks about itself – from a focus
on the enemy to a focus on the people of Afghanistan. The paper argues
that because the United States has focused the overwhelming majority
of collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups,
our intelligence apparatus still finds itself unable to answer
fundamental questions about the environment in which we operate and
the people we are trying to protect and persuade.
This problem or its consequences exist at every level of the U.S.
intelligence hierarchy, and pivotal information is not making it to
those who need it. To quote General Stanley McChrystal in a recent
meeting, “Our senior leaders – the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, the Secretary of Defense, Congress, the President of the United
States – are not getting the right information to make decisions
with ... The media is driving the issues. We need to build a process
from the sensor all the way to the political decision makers.” This is
a need that spans the 44 nations involved with the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
This paper is the blueprint for that process. It describes the
problem, details the changes and illuminates examples of units that
are “getting it right.” It is aimed at commanders as well as
intelligence professionals, in Afghanistan and in the United States
and Europe.
Among the initiatives Major General Flynn directs: • Select teams of
analysts will be empowered to move between field elements, much like
journalists, to visit collectors of information at the grassroots
level and carry that information back with them to the regional
command level.
• These items will integrate information collected by civil affairs
officers, PRTs, atmospherics teams, Afghan liaison officers, female
engagement teams, willing non-governmental organizations and
development organizations, United Nations officials, psychological
operations teams, human terrain teams, and infantry battalions, to
name a few.
• These analysts will divide their work along geographic lines,
instead of along functional lines, and write comprehensive district
assessments covering governance, development and stability. The
alternative – having all analysts study an entire province or region
through the lens of a narrow, functional line(e.g. one analyst covers
governance, another studies
narcotics trafficking, a third looks at insurgent networks, etc) –
isn’t working.
• The analysts will provide all the data they gather to teams of
“information brokers” at the regional command level who will organize
and disseminate – proactively and on request – all the reports and
data gathered at the grassroots level.
• These special teams of analysts and information brokers will work in
what the authors are calling Stability Operations Information Centers.
(The authors discuss how these Information Centers cooperate with, and
in some cases replace, “Fusion Centers”.)
• These Information Centers will be placed under and in cooperation
with the State Department’s senior civilian representatives
administering governance, development and stability efforts in
Regional Commands East and South.
• Leaders must put time and energy into selecting the best, most
extroverted and hungriest analysts to serve in the Stability
Operations Information Centers. These will be among the most
challenging and rewarding jobs an analyst could tackle.
The highly complex environment in Afghanistan requires an adaptive way
of thinking and operating.
Just as the old rules of warfare may no longer apply, a new way of
leveraging and applying the information spectrum requires substantive
improvements. The ISAF Joint Command (IJC) under the leadership of
Lieutenant General David M. Rodriguez has made some recent innovative
strides with the advent of the “Information Dominance Center.” This
type of innovation must be mirrored to the degree possible at multiple
levels of command and back in our intelligence community structures in
the United States. In no way is this a perfect solution and the United
States will continue to adapt. However, the United States must
constantly change our way of operating and thinking if we want to win.
Jack Linthicum
A Critique of Fixing Intell
Pentagon calls spy critique "irregular"
REUTERS
Reuters US Online Report Politics News
Jan 05, 2010 17:06 EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon expressed surprise on Tuesday at
the irregular way in which the U.S. military's intelligence chief in
Afghanistan aired his criticism of spy agencies -- publishing a
withering report with a private think tank.
Major General Michael Flynn, deputy chief of staff for intelligence in
Afghanistan for the U.S. military and its NATO allies, said spies were
overly focused on killing insurgents and out of touch with the Afghan
people.
The sweeping critique was released on Monday by the Washington D.C.-
based think thank, Center for New American Security. [ID:nN04252368] A
copy was delivered the same day to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert
Gates, the Pentagon said.
"I think it struck everybody as a little bit curious, yes ... My sense
is that this was an anomaly and that we probably won't see that (in
the future)," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
"It was an unusual and irregular way to publish a document of this
nature."
Other defense officials at the Pentagon privately expressed surprise
at how the report was released.
The think tank was co-founded by Michele Flournoy, who in February was
appointed undersecretary of defense for policy.
Flynn said U.S. intelligence officials in Afghanistan were "ignorant
of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are
and how they might be influenced ... and disengaged from people in the
best position to find answers."
An operations officer was quoted in the report as calling the United
States "clueless" because of a lack of needed intelligence about the
country.
Whitman did not question the substance of the report but cautioned
that officials were still reviewing it.
"I think it's a candid assessment of some of the shortcomings there
(in intelligence) and the challenges that face us," he said.
He did not rule out the possibility that commanders outside of
Washington were aware of the report's release ahead of time.
The report, which highlighted tensions between military and
intelligence agencies, urged changes such as a focus on gathering more
information on a wider range of issues at a grassroots level.
"Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence
community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy," Flynn
wrote in the report.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2010/01/pentagon_calls_spy_critique_irregular.php?ref=fpa
Dennis
> This paper is PDF and long, if you wish to read it in full go to the
> citation and punch up the printing command. http://www.cnas.org/node/3924
>
>
> Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in
> Afghanistan
>
> Author(s): Major General Michael T. Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger,
> Paul D. Batchelor
> Type of Publication: Working Papers
> Date: 01/04/2010
>
> application/pdf icon
> Download the Full Working Paper (PDF)
Interesting.
I read "Legacy of Ashes." That's about the CIA, but it sounds like
the CIA has been completely gutted, and probably not worth much of anything
ATM.
Dennis
Jack Linthicum
> Jack Linthicum wrote:
> > This paper is PDF and long, if you wish to read it in full go to the
>
> > Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in
> > Afghanistan
>
> > Author(s): Major General Michael T. Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger,
> > Paul D. Batchelor
> > Type of Publication: Working Papers
> > Date: 01/04/2010
>
> > application/pdf icon
> > Download the Full Working Paper (PDF)
>
> Interesting.
>
> I read "Legacy of Ashes." That's about the CIA, but it sounds like
> the CIA has been completely gutted, and probably not worth much of anything
> ATM.
>
> Dennis
Depends. As that bomb bit in Afghanistan shows it can hinge on a lucky
break or a really talented officer.
Jack Linthicum
January 7, 2010
Suicide Bombing Puts a Rare Face on C.I.A.’s Work
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — In the fall of 2001, as an anguished nation came to grips
with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a slender, soft-spoken economics
major named Elizabeth Hanson set out to write her senior thesis at
Colby College in Maine. Her question was a timely one: How do the
world’s three major faith traditions apply economic principles?
Ms. Hanson’s report, “Faithless Heathens: Scriptural Economics of
Judaism, Christianity and Islam,” carried a title far more provocative
than its contents, said the professor who advised her. But it may have
given a hint of her career to come, as an officer for the Central
Intelligence Agency specializing in hunting down Islamic extremists.
That career was cut short last week: Ms. Hanson was one of seven
Americans killed in a suicide bombing at a C.I.A. base in the remote
mountains of Afghanistan.
In the days since the attack, details of the lives of the victims —
five men and two women, including two C.I.A. contractors from the firm
formerly known as Blackwater — have begun to trickle out, despite the
secretive nature of their work. What emerges is a rare public glimpse
of a closed society, a peek into one sliver of the spy agency as it
operates more than eight years after the C.I.A. was pushed to the
front lines of war.
Their deaths were a significant blow to the agency, crippling a team
responsible for collecting information about militant networks in
Afghanistan and Pakistan and plotting missions to kill the networks’
top leaders. And in one sign of how the once male-dominated bastion of
the C.I.A. has changed in recent years, the suicide bombing revealed
that a woman had been in charge of the base that was attacked, Forward
Operating Base Chapman in Khost Province.
On Wednesday, the operational leader of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan issued
a statement praising the work of the suicide bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-
Mulal al-Balawi, and said that the Khost bombing, which also killed a
Jordanian intelligence operative, was revenge for the killings of a
number of top militant leaders in C.I.A. drone attacks.
“He detonated his fine, astonishing and well-designed explosive
device, which was unseen by the eyes of those who do not believe in
the hereafter,” said the statement from the Qaeda leader, Mustafa Abu
al-Yazid, which was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.
Those who died came from all corners of the United States but were
thrown together in one of the most dangerous parts of the world.
Several had military backgrounds. One of the fallen C.I.A. employees,
a security officer named Scott Roberson, had worked undercover as a
narcotics detective in the Atlanta Police Department, according to an
obituary, and spent time in Kosovo for the United Nations. Postings on
an online memorial site describe a hard-charging motorcyclist with a
remarkable recall of episodes of “The Benny Hill Show.”
Another, Harold Brown Jr., was a former Army reservist and father of
three who had traveled home from Afghanistan briefly in July to help
his family move into a new home in the Northern Virginia suburbs.
Mr. Brown’s mother, Barbara, said in an interview that her son — she
had believed he worked for the State Department — had intended to
spend a year in Afghanistan, returning home in April. He did not
relish the work, she said, and talked little about it.
“The people there just want to live their lives. They’re normal
people,” she recalled him saying, adding that he had told her parts of
Afghanistan were “just like back in biblical times.”
The base chief, an agency veteran, had traveled to Afghanistan last
year as part of the C.I.A.’s effort to augment its ranks in the war
zone. After consulting with the C.I.A., The New York Times is
withholding some identifying information about the woman. The agency
declined to comment about the identities of any of the employees. Some
of the names were disclosed by family members. Ms. Hanson’s name was
first reported in The Daily Beast, an online magazine.
In a telephone interview, her father, Duane Hanson Jr., said an agency
official called several days ago to let him know that his daughter,
who he said would have turned 31 next month, had been killed. He knew
little of her work, other than that she had been in Afghanistan. “I
begged her not to go,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Do you know how
dangerous that is? That’s for soldiers.’ ”
The other woman killed, the chief of the Khost base, was, before the
Sept. 11 attacks, part of a small cadre of counterterrorism officers
focused on the growth of Al Qaeda and charged with finding Osama bin
Laden.
Working from a small office near C.I.A. headquarters, the group, known
inside the agency as Alec Station, became increasingly alarmed in the
summer of 2001 that a major strike was coming. One former officer
recalls that the woman had a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of Al
Qaeda’s top leadership and was so familiar with the different
permutations of the leaders’ names that she could take fragments of
intelligence and build them into a mosaic of Al Qaeda’s operations.
“She was one of the first people in the agency to tackle Al Qaeda in a
serious way,” said the former officer, who, like some others
interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity
because the victims’ identities remain classified.
She was not the only veteran Qaeda expert killed in the attack. One
victim, whose name has not been disclosed, was one of the C.I.A.’s
most knowledgeable analysts about the terrorist network, according to
a retired senior agency official.
Two of the dead, Jeremy Wise, 35, a former member of the Navy Seals
from Virginia Beach, Va., and Dane Clark Paresi, 46, of Dupont, Wash.,
were security officers for Xe Services, the firm formerly known as
Blackwater.
The company did not respond to a request for comment about the deaths,
but they have been widely reported in local newspapers. The Jeremy
Wise Memorial on Facebook had 3,189 fans on Tuesday, filled with
recollections of Mr. Wise’s childhood as the son of a doctor in
Arkansas; his parents currently live in Hope, Bill Clinton’s hometown.
“RIP, Jeremy Wise, American hero,” one wrote.
The suicide bomber has been identified as a Jordanian double agent who
was taken onto the base to meet with American officials who thought he
was an informant.
In a message to the C.I.A. work force after the attack, President
Obama told agency employees that “your triumphs and even your names
may be unknown to your fellow Americans.” And indeed, some relatives
and friends of the dead did not seem to know of their agency
connections.
Ms. Hanson’s economics professor, Michael Donihue, said he was shocked
to discover her career path. At Colby, from which she graduated in
2002, she paired her economics major with a minor in Russian language
and literature.
“She was a thoughtful person; she had an intellectual curiosity that I
really liked,” Professor Donihue said.
Officials in Afghanistan and Washington said the C.I.A. group in Khost
had been particularly aggressive in recent months against the Haqqani
network, a militant group that has claimed responsibility for dozens
of American deaths in Afghanistan. One NATO official in Afghanistan
spoke in stark terms about the attack, saying it had “effectively shut
down a key station.”
“These were not people who wrote things down in the computer or in
notebooks. It was all in their heads,” he said. The C.I.A. is “pulling
in new people from all over the world, but how long will it take to
rebuild the networks, to get up to speed? Lots of it is irrecoverable.
Lots of it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/world/asia/07intel.html?hp=&pagewanted=print