Wednesday September 17, 2008
Drug Busts Show Power of Cooperation
Today's DOJ announcement of a major, multinational bust of the Gulf Cartel shows that cooperation across agencies and international borders can yield significant results.
With the growing nexus of the drug trade and terrorist activities, it is no longer possible to view the drug trade as separate from the merging organized crime/terrorist pipelines that we are seeing across Latin America and Asia.
The 15-month "Project Reckoning" operation stretched from Mexico to Italy, yielding 175 arrests, the seizure of $60 million and other benefits. It touched sections of the transnational criminal pipeline in Colombia, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States.
There is no question the results are particularly good news for Mexico, where the Calderon government is fighting for its survival and the survival of the Mexican state in the face of renewed drug cartel violence.
It is hard to understand why more such operations are not undertaken. Part of the reason is the lack of sustained focus by previous attorneys general on the issue of transnational crime and its long-term impact on the societies in which it operates, including creating conditions that foster an alliance with terrorist organizations (the FARC in Colombia, the Taliban in Afghanistan/Pakistan, the Tamil Tigers etc.)
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has gone a long way toward remedying that oversight and neglect, and I hope it continues, regardless of who wins the elections.
"The scope of the threat demands a deliberate and sustained response and the success we have had, such as the takedowns announced today, is due to the combined efforts of federal, state, local and international law enforcement" Mukasey said. "Although I am pleased with the efforts so far, we cannot and will not rest on these successes. The threat posed by international drug cartels is too great. It will take all of us working together to prevail."
That, and a talk earlier this year at CSIS, are more than had been said on organized crime and its threat in the past 7 years.
What is interesting in this bust is the view of the pipeline it provides, a pipeline I described in NEFA Foundation paper I did for the US Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida.
We have weapons, cocaine, meth, heroin, and vehicles all traveling the same transnational route, operated by the same people.
It is not difficult to extrapolate that the same pipelines carry illegal immigrants, endangered species (one of the most lucrative illegal trades out there) and many other things. It is not difficult to see how that diversified pipeline can carry other, more dangerous cargo, from nuclear components (as A.Q. Kahm mastered) to biological weapons, to members of terrorist cells.
That we have an attorney general who gets this is important. That the education and emphasis carry into the next administration is vital.
With the growing nexus of the drug trade and terrorist activities, it is no longer possible to view the drug trade as separate from the merging organized crime/terrorist pipelines that we are seeing across Latin America and Asia.
The 15-month "Project Reckoning" operation stretched from Mexico to Italy, yielding 175 arrests, the seizure of $60 million and other benefits. It touched sections of the transnational criminal pipeline in Colombia, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States.
There is no question the results are particularly good news for Mexico, where the Calderon government is fighting for its survival and the survival of the Mexican state in the face of renewed drug cartel violence.
It is hard to understand why more such operations are not undertaken. Part of the reason is the lack of sustained focus by previous attorneys general on the issue of transnational crime and its long-term impact on the societies in which it operates, including creating conditions that foster an alliance with terrorist organizations (the FARC in Colombia, the Taliban in Afghanistan/Pakistan, the Tamil Tigers etc.)
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has gone a long way toward remedying that oversight and neglect, and I hope it continues, regardless of who wins the elections.
"The scope of the threat demands a deliberate and sustained response and the success we have had, such as the takedowns announced today, is due to the combined efforts of federal, state, local and international law enforcement" Mukasey said. "Although I am pleased with the efforts so far, we cannot and will not rest on these successes. The threat posed by international drug cartels is too great. It will take all of us working together to prevail."
That, and a talk earlier this year at CSIS, are more than had been said on organized crime and its threat in the past 7 years.
What is interesting in this bust is the view of the pipeline it provides, a pipeline I described in NEFA Foundation paper I did for the US Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida.
We have weapons, cocaine, meth, heroin, and vehicles all traveling the same transnational route, operated by the same people.
It is not difficult to extrapolate that the same pipelines carry illegal immigrants, endangered species (one of the most lucrative illegal trades out there) and many other things. It is not difficult to see how that diversified pipeline can carry other, more dangerous cargo, from nuclear components (as A.Q. Kahm mastered) to biological weapons, to members of terrorist cells.
That we have an attorney general who gets this is important. That the education and emphasis carry into the next administration is vital.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Monday September 15, 2008
A Useful Reminder of the Enemy's Efforts
The Los Angeles Times has an interesting story on the ongoing efforts of al Qaeda to carry out a high-profile strike, particularly in Europe.
Several things stand out in the article. One is the amount of evidence that could not be introduced in British court in the recent mixed verdict, despite the fact that "intercepts and other evidence indicate that leaders of the plots had contact with each other, converged in Pakistan and were trained by Al Qaeda bosses, officials said."
It is always striking to me how much information, after it is gathered and often held for a significant period time-far past the time it would compromise sources and methods-is simply unusable in court.
A second thing is that the plotters were apparently all getting together in Pakistan and training with the old-guard al Qaeda core group. It is interesting that, despite the conflict in Iraq and many other places where these groups could train-including in Great Britain, they still go back to the "homeland" of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
I suspect this considerable time, risk and expense is viewed as worthwhile because the blessing and knowledge of old guard al Qaeda is still viewed as something to be sought at almost any cost, at least among certain groups of _jihadis._
This, in turn, speaks to the great appeal and moral authority still exercised by bin Laden and his immediate circle. Clearly there is a decentralization and franchizing out of the broader radical Islamist network, but to me this undercuts some of the appeal of the argument that we are dealing almost exclusively with a leaderless network. Yes, there are leaderless networks, or segmented groups that operate, but it seems the blessing of the old guard is still valuable to significant groups.
Finally, the story contends that:
Security forces have detected a new trend starting this spring: Dozens of foreign fighters leaving Iraq have found refuge in Bosnia-Herzegovina rather than returning home, according to two senior European anti-terrorism officials. The veterans are assisted by an infrastructure of Arab militants who obtained Bosnian passports after fighting there in the 1990s, officials said.
"They go from Iraq to Bosnia and stay there awhile," an anti-terrorism official said. "They are mainly North Africans. It's not easy, but they enter Bosnia and live semi-clandestinely with the help of the mujahedin who have always been there. Eventually some show up in countries like France or Italy."
This shows that, once radical Islamist networks are established, they almost never go away. The remnants of them remain and can be reactivated. The Bosnian war was more than a decade ago, and many of the _mujahadeen_ that were granted citizenship have had their passports revoked.
But the network lives on, as do the poisonous networks in Latin America (the Ortega wing of the Sandinistas, the Communist Party in the FMLN in El Salvador, the FARC and elements of Hugo Chavez's intelligence structure). It is far better to keep the networks from being built up than it is to try to eradicate them after they have been established.
Several things stand out in the article. One is the amount of evidence that could not be introduced in British court in the recent mixed verdict, despite the fact that "intercepts and other evidence indicate that leaders of the plots had contact with each other, converged in Pakistan and were trained by Al Qaeda bosses, officials said."
It is always striking to me how much information, after it is gathered and often held for a significant period time-far past the time it would compromise sources and methods-is simply unusable in court.
A second thing is that the plotters were apparently all getting together in Pakistan and training with the old-guard al Qaeda core group. It is interesting that, despite the conflict in Iraq and many other places where these groups could train-including in Great Britain, they still go back to the "homeland" of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
I suspect this considerable time, risk and expense is viewed as worthwhile because the blessing and knowledge of old guard al Qaeda is still viewed as something to be sought at almost any cost, at least among certain groups of _jihadis._
This, in turn, speaks to the great appeal and moral authority still exercised by bin Laden and his immediate circle. Clearly there is a decentralization and franchizing out of the broader radical Islamist network, but to me this undercuts some of the appeal of the argument that we are dealing almost exclusively with a leaderless network. Yes, there are leaderless networks, or segmented groups that operate, but it seems the blessing of the old guard is still valuable to significant groups.
Finally, the story contends that:
Security forces have detected a new trend starting this spring: Dozens of foreign fighters leaving Iraq have found refuge in Bosnia-Herzegovina rather than returning home, according to two senior European anti-terrorism officials. The veterans are assisted by an infrastructure of Arab militants who obtained Bosnian passports after fighting there in the 1990s, officials said.
"They go from Iraq to Bosnia and stay there awhile," an anti-terrorism official said. "They are mainly North Africans. It's not easy, but they enter Bosnia and live semi-clandestinely with the help of the mujahedin who have always been there. Eventually some show up in countries like France or Italy."
This shows that, once radical Islamist networks are established, they almost never go away. The remnants of them remain and can be reactivated. The Bosnian war was more than a decade ago, and many of the _mujahadeen_ that were granted citizenship have had their passports revoked.
But the network lives on, as do the poisonous networks in Latin America (the Ortega wing of the Sandinistas, the Communist Party in the FMLN in El Salvador, the FARC and elements of Hugo Chavez's intelligence structure). It is far better to keep the networks from being built up than it is to try to eradicate them after they have been established.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Friday September 12, 2008
Years of Neglect Catch Up in Latin America
The news that both Bolivia and Venezuela, whose presidents are staunch allies and friends, have chosen to expel the respective U.S. ambassadors is the most visible evidence of the frayed relations the United States now has with much of Latin America.
As my colleague Andrew Cochran wrote the United States then immediately took the step of designating the three most visible Venezuelan officials whose ties to the FARC were clearly established.
What is amazing is that, until this blow-up, U.S. officials in different departments of the government, have been minimizing the well-documented alliance, as well as other issues discussed below, that have made Latin America a far different place than it was five years ago.
Unfortunately, with the exception of Colombia policy, there has been virtually no policy toward Latin America, and the festering issues there have been left to fester.
As a friend said after recently sitting through a 50-minute briefing by a senior government official on security issues facing Latin America without once mentioning Venezuela, Iran or Russia, the presentation was a true "tour de force."
This was because the official managed to never mention any of the burning issues, instead painting a relatively upbeat picture of the regions as a free trade, democratic region in the full flower of health.
Much of the evidence against the three designated Venezuelans: Hugo Armando Carvajal (head of military intelligence); Henry de Jesus Rangel (director of intelligence); and Ramon Emilio Rodriguez Chacin (former minister of defense and interior) comes from the computer of Raul Reyes, the FARC's deputy commander killed in Ecuador by Colombian forces on March 1.
The Reyes documents (which I have analyzed in this NEFA Foundation paper clearly outline the role of the three in protecting the FARC, meeting regularly with FARC leadership and discussing weapons shipments with the rebels.
The FARC moves its some 250 kilos of cocaine, largely Europe-bound, through Venezuela, and internal FARC documents show that the shipments are often escorted by Venezuelan military or intelligence officials to the ports from which they are embarked, in order to insure the drugs' safe transit.
But there is a much more worrisome backdrop to the events that are shaking Bolivia, and being exploited by Chavez. That is the growing presence of a state sponsor of radical Islamist terror (Iran) and a state (Russia) that is increasingly willing to sell weapons indiscriminately to both Iran and its allies in Latin America. Add this to the mix of the FARC and Venezuelan state sponsorship for the organization and it is a highly-combustible mix.
This can be documented in the presence, for the first time ever, of long-range Russian bombers in Venezuela and the invitation (already accepted) for the Russian fleet to visit Venezuela. Chavez is exulting the "Yankee hegemony" is finished.
It can also be seen, as Jeff Stein writes in CQ in Daniel Ortega's bid for Russian military aid and his welcoming of the Iranians. Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, just visited Tehran.
All this may mean that Chavez is right, but the price will be high. Some of my friends argue that Latin American governments have the right to build alliances wherever they choose, for whatever reasons they want, and the U.S. cannot and should not dictate that. They are right.
But does anyone really believe that replacing U.S. influence with that of radical ayatollahs is a winning proposition for the countries involved? Already there is anger boiling over (and Ortega has had to cancel several his attendance at several summit meeting in Central America because feelings run so high) that Chavez and Ortega have ceded to Iranian officials' demands that all women leave the buildings the Iranian officials visit.
A bit of a slap in the face to the women, by two leaders who claim the progressive mantle in the region. That is but one small example of the price that will be extracted for the alliance in ways these same friends would never tolerate if it were the U.S. imposing such conditions.
And the Russians? Yes, it is true the U.S. has a long history of arming thugs and murderers in Latin America. But few could deny that there has been a huge change in U.S. policies over the past 15 years, and some new, and I would argue far better, criteria have been developed over how and who weapons are sold to and which militaries receive significant aid.
Can one really believe that allying with Russia, who will (and has) sold weapons to all sides of many conflicts in Africa and elsewhere, will be a better bargain for the region?
So, years of benign and negligent optimism in Latin America is blowing up in our faces. Little has been done to work with other Latin nations (principally Brazil and Chile, whose leaders have the credentials to take on Chavez for the mantle of progressive leadership) on defang the Iran-Chavez axis or offer a significant alternative. The entire hemisphere will pay a price.
As my colleague Andrew Cochran wrote the United States then immediately took the step of designating the three most visible Venezuelan officials whose ties to the FARC were clearly established.
What is amazing is that, until this blow-up, U.S. officials in different departments of the government, have been minimizing the well-documented alliance, as well as other issues discussed below, that have made Latin America a far different place than it was five years ago.
Unfortunately, with the exception of Colombia policy, there has been virtually no policy toward Latin America, and the festering issues there have been left to fester.
As a friend said after recently sitting through a 50-minute briefing by a senior government official on security issues facing Latin America without once mentioning Venezuela, Iran or Russia, the presentation was a true "tour de force."
This was because the official managed to never mention any of the burning issues, instead painting a relatively upbeat picture of the regions as a free trade, democratic region in the full flower of health.
Much of the evidence against the three designated Venezuelans: Hugo Armando Carvajal (head of military intelligence); Henry de Jesus Rangel (director of intelligence); and Ramon Emilio Rodriguez Chacin (former minister of defense and interior) comes from the computer of Raul Reyes, the FARC's deputy commander killed in Ecuador by Colombian forces on March 1.
The Reyes documents (which I have analyzed in this NEFA Foundation paper clearly outline the role of the three in protecting the FARC, meeting regularly with FARC leadership and discussing weapons shipments with the rebels.
The FARC moves its some 250 kilos of cocaine, largely Europe-bound, through Venezuela, and internal FARC documents show that the shipments are often escorted by Venezuelan military or intelligence officials to the ports from which they are embarked, in order to insure the drugs' safe transit.
But there is a much more worrisome backdrop to the events that are shaking Bolivia, and being exploited by Chavez. That is the growing presence of a state sponsor of radical Islamist terror (Iran) and a state (Russia) that is increasingly willing to sell weapons indiscriminately to both Iran and its allies in Latin America. Add this to the mix of the FARC and Venezuelan state sponsorship for the organization and it is a highly-combustible mix.
This can be documented in the presence, for the first time ever, of long-range Russian bombers in Venezuela and the invitation (already accepted) for the Russian fleet to visit Venezuela. Chavez is exulting the "Yankee hegemony" is finished.
It can also be seen, as Jeff Stein writes in CQ in Daniel Ortega's bid for Russian military aid and his welcoming of the Iranians. Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, just visited Tehran.
All this may mean that Chavez is right, but the price will be high. Some of my friends argue that Latin American governments have the right to build alliances wherever they choose, for whatever reasons they want, and the U.S. cannot and should not dictate that. They are right.
But does anyone really believe that replacing U.S. influence with that of radical ayatollahs is a winning proposition for the countries involved? Already there is anger boiling over (and Ortega has had to cancel several his attendance at several summit meeting in Central America because feelings run so high) that Chavez and Ortega have ceded to Iranian officials' demands that all women leave the buildings the Iranian officials visit.
A bit of a slap in the face to the women, by two leaders who claim the progressive mantle in the region. That is but one small example of the price that will be extracted for the alliance in ways these same friends would never tolerate if it were the U.S. imposing such conditions.
And the Russians? Yes, it is true the U.S. has a long history of arming thugs and murderers in Latin America. But few could deny that there has been a huge change in U.S. policies over the past 15 years, and some new, and I would argue far better, criteria have been developed over how and who weapons are sold to and which militaries receive significant aid.
Can one really believe that allying with Russia, who will (and has) sold weapons to all sides of many conflicts in Africa and elsewhere, will be a better bargain for the region?
So, years of benign and negligent optimism in Latin America is blowing up in our faces. Little has been done to work with other Latin nations (principally Brazil and Chile, whose leaders have the credentials to take on Chavez for the mantle of progressive leadership) on defang the Iran-Chavez axis or offer a significant alternative. The entire hemisphere will pay a price.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Thursday September 11, 2008
Trying to Get it Right in Afghanistan, and Ignoring the Elephant in the Room
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, has sounded the alarm on Afghanistan, correctly pointing out that the danger of losing there is real and the hour is late.
It is fitting, on this day, to remember that our collective inability to get Afghanistan right once before helped give our enemies the opportunity to plan and execute the 9/11 attacks that are being remembered today.
What is striking about the published reports of Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates is the absence of any discussion of one of the driving forces of the Taliban's mounting success: its access to tens of millions of dollars in opium and poppy money. The UN conservatively estimates the Taliban makes between $50 million and $70 million a year from the drug trade.
Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room! Here is the prototype of future terrorist and insurgent movements deriving its income from non-state sources, and combating that figures into the policy at best in a marginal way.
In the 1980s the mujahadeen relied on U.S., Saudi and Pakistani aid, and became, over time, a largely state-sponsored, though non-state, actor. Now there is far less state sponsorship (with the exception of Pakistan's ISI), and the revenue is derived from criminal activity, an MO we will see more and more frequently in coming years.
The other multiple issues listed by Mullen are correct. There is a severe shortage of manpower and airlift capability. There is a terribly disjointed chain of command among the NATO forces and between NATO and the U.S. forces. The intelligence sharing infrastructure hardly exists. All of these are crippling weaknesses, and weaknesses that simply adding more troops will not resolve.
Iraq is going better because there was an integrated approach by Gen. Petraeus to use the surge with the fusion cells and vastly improved intelligence integration. Patraeus also focused heavily on the money flow to al Qaeda in Iraq forces.
The money flow to the Taliban is clear and identifiable, but no one wants to discuss it, because discussing it would entail having to develop a strategy to confront it. As in Colombia and elsewhere, the military has been extremely reluctant to get into counter-drug activities.
There are a number of good reasons for this, and a more active policy does not necessarily entail giving the military a lead role. There are other agencies better equipped for that. And any policy must also be comprehensive, not built primarily on the suppression of the opium crop, because the civilian population is already caught in the middle, as it has been for decades of conflict, and erradication alone will certainly alienate them.
But it does entail recognizing where the Taliban gets its funding to expand, upgrade it weaponry, improve its communications and greatly increase its mobility. Without recognizing the drug issues are directly related to the success of the insurgency (as Colombia finally did with the FARC, after years of trying to keep counter-drug and counter-insurgency policies separate), the rest of the policy and strategy retooling will only affect the margins of the conflict there.
If the US and NATO is serious about improving the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, the Taliban's money stream must be cut off. That stream is heavily dependent on opium. Ignoring that reality is not a policy.
It is fitting, on this day, to remember that our collective inability to get Afghanistan right once before helped give our enemies the opportunity to plan and execute the 9/11 attacks that are being remembered today.
What is striking about the published reports of Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates is the absence of any discussion of one of the driving forces of the Taliban's mounting success: its access to tens of millions of dollars in opium and poppy money. The UN conservatively estimates the Taliban makes between $50 million and $70 million a year from the drug trade.
Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room! Here is the prototype of future terrorist and insurgent movements deriving its income from non-state sources, and combating that figures into the policy at best in a marginal way.
In the 1980s the mujahadeen relied on U.S., Saudi and Pakistani aid, and became, over time, a largely state-sponsored, though non-state, actor. Now there is far less state sponsorship (with the exception of Pakistan's ISI), and the revenue is derived from criminal activity, an MO we will see more and more frequently in coming years.
The other multiple issues listed by Mullen are correct. There is a severe shortage of manpower and airlift capability. There is a terribly disjointed chain of command among the NATO forces and between NATO and the U.S. forces. The intelligence sharing infrastructure hardly exists. All of these are crippling weaknesses, and weaknesses that simply adding more troops will not resolve.
Iraq is going better because there was an integrated approach by Gen. Petraeus to use the surge with the fusion cells and vastly improved intelligence integration. Patraeus also focused heavily on the money flow to al Qaeda in Iraq forces.
The money flow to the Taliban is clear and identifiable, but no one wants to discuss it, because discussing it would entail having to develop a strategy to confront it. As in Colombia and elsewhere, the military has been extremely reluctant to get into counter-drug activities.
There are a number of good reasons for this, and a more active policy does not necessarily entail giving the military a lead role. There are other agencies better equipped for that. And any policy must also be comprehensive, not built primarily on the suppression of the opium crop, because the civilian population is already caught in the middle, as it has been for decades of conflict, and erradication alone will certainly alienate them.
But it does entail recognizing where the Taliban gets its funding to expand, upgrade it weaponry, improve its communications and greatly increase its mobility. Without recognizing the drug issues are directly related to the success of the insurgency (as Colombia finally did with the FARC, after years of trying to keep counter-drug and counter-insurgency policies separate), the rest of the policy and strategy retooling will only affect the margins of the conflict there.
If the US and NATO is serious about improving the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, the Taliban's money stream must be cut off. That stream is heavily dependent on opium. Ignoring that reality is not a policy.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Monday September 8, 2008
The Success of the "Fusion Center" Strategy
After a few years in the wilderness, the U.S. military and its allies in other parts of the world have honed the cutting edge of a significant series of steps that are yielding highly successful results in combatting non-state armed groups-including terrorists, not just in Iraq but in Colombia and elsewhere.
The Washington Post's recent story on the "fusion cells" gets at the core of the program: The integration and blending of field intelligence (human and signal) with the ability to act rapidly on that information.
The NSA targeted its listening operations, the Treasury Department began tracing anything to do with money and Special Operations Forces, with the help of the latest technology and imaging capabilities, carry out the operations.
"To me, it's not just war-fighting now but in the future," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the newspaper. "It's been the synergy, it's been the integration that has had such an impact."
One of the keys has been the ability, over time, to force the sharing of a range of skills in a single unit, so that the traditional segregation and stove pipes have ended. The value of tracing even useless-looking information, particularly from the "pocket litter" of those captured or killed, has proved itself on many occasions.
While this is integration is a fact at the level of these small task forces, it remains far from accomplished on broad level. In fact, much of the upper tiers of the intelligence community are just as resistant to change and perhaps less inclined to share intelligence than 9-11.
But the success of fusing all elements of intelligence and force to capture often elusive enemies is not just evident in Iraq. In its own way, the Colombian military and policy have been on the cutting edge of the program in combatting the FARC.
Just as downward spirals become visible after years failure, so upward spirals in intelligence gathering and successful attacks on the enemy also take time to become visible and measurable.
The impact in Colombia, where such fusion centers have been experimented with since 2003, has suddenly been felt. (For a look at the the state of the FARC, see this paper I wrote for the NEFA Foundation.
When he took office, president Alvaro Uribe met with the heads of intelligence from the three military branches and the National Police. His message was simple, according to participants in the meeting: "If I find that anyone of you has withheld a piece of information that could have helped anyone else, you will be fired." And then heads started to roll.
The results were dramatic, as the elements fell into place. A systematic data base of FARC interrogations was established, interrogations were improved, and integrated intelligence units established. The U.S. provided the technical assistance to track an increasingly-wide swath of FARC communications. A major rewards program was developed to induce desertions.
If communications or other intelligence was actionable, special integrated units moved on it. The interrogations yielded the first serious look at the FARC and its operations the military had ever had, despite being at war for more than 40 years. Slowly the downward spiral, where the FARC had military defeated the military in major battles and controlled more than 40 percent of the national territory, was reversed.
This year, as a result of these and other factors, the FARC has lost two of its top seven commanders on the battlefield (and its overall commander to a heart attack), seen its high-value hostages rescued in a dramatic operation, witnessed the desertion of several hundred mid-level commanders, and been forced to ditch their satellite telephones in favor of couriers hand-carrying messages among the different fronts. Not an ideal way to run a war, given the distances among the fronts and high command.
In Iraq, one sees the downward spiral of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and the model is slowly being transferred to Afghanistan and elsewhere. Afghanistan is a more difficult situation because of the NATO command structure and other elements.
It is clear that the terrorist and insurgent forces will adapt, they always do. But it seems likely that, for the first time in many years, the military has placed itself in the position to adapt and change almost as quickly.
The Washington Post's recent story on the "fusion cells" gets at the core of the program: The integration and blending of field intelligence (human and signal) with the ability to act rapidly on that information.
The NSA targeted its listening operations, the Treasury Department began tracing anything to do with money and Special Operations Forces, with the help of the latest technology and imaging capabilities, carry out the operations.
"To me, it's not just war-fighting now but in the future," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the newspaper. "It's been the synergy, it's been the integration that has had such an impact."
One of the keys has been the ability, over time, to force the sharing of a range of skills in a single unit, so that the traditional segregation and stove pipes have ended. The value of tracing even useless-looking information, particularly from the "pocket litter" of those captured or killed, has proved itself on many occasions.
While this is integration is a fact at the level of these small task forces, it remains far from accomplished on broad level. In fact, much of the upper tiers of the intelligence community are just as resistant to change and perhaps less inclined to share intelligence than 9-11.
But the success of fusing all elements of intelligence and force to capture often elusive enemies is not just evident in Iraq. In its own way, the Colombian military and policy have been on the cutting edge of the program in combatting the FARC.
Just as downward spirals become visible after years failure, so upward spirals in intelligence gathering and successful attacks on the enemy also take time to become visible and measurable.
The impact in Colombia, where such fusion centers have been experimented with since 2003, has suddenly been felt. (For a look at the the state of the FARC, see this paper I wrote for the NEFA Foundation.
When he took office, president Alvaro Uribe met with the heads of intelligence from the three military branches and the National Police. His message was simple, according to participants in the meeting: "If I find that anyone of you has withheld a piece of information that could have helped anyone else, you will be fired." And then heads started to roll.
The results were dramatic, as the elements fell into place. A systematic data base of FARC interrogations was established, interrogations were improved, and integrated intelligence units established. The U.S. provided the technical assistance to track an increasingly-wide swath of FARC communications. A major rewards program was developed to induce desertions.
If communications or other intelligence was actionable, special integrated units moved on it. The interrogations yielded the first serious look at the FARC and its operations the military had ever had, despite being at war for more than 40 years. Slowly the downward spiral, where the FARC had military defeated the military in major battles and controlled more than 40 percent of the national territory, was reversed.
This year, as a result of these and other factors, the FARC has lost two of its top seven commanders on the battlefield (and its overall commander to a heart attack), seen its high-value hostages rescued in a dramatic operation, witnessed the desertion of several hundred mid-level commanders, and been forced to ditch their satellite telephones in favor of couriers hand-carrying messages among the different fronts. Not an ideal way to run a war, given the distances among the fronts and high command.
In Iraq, one sees the downward spiral of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and the model is slowly being transferred to Afghanistan and elsewhere. Afghanistan is a more difficult situation because of the NATO command structure and other elements.
It is clear that the terrorist and insurgent forces will adapt, they always do. But it seems likely that, for the first time in many years, the military has placed itself in the position to adapt and change almost as quickly.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH