Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin - Federation of American ...

level. He quickly recognized the concept’s utility:
“The 35Ms assigned to my company were the biggest
combat multipliers by far.” 9
Able Company accelerated past her sister companies
in the battalion task force due largely to superior
intelligence collection efforts. They focused on gathering
background information on the local area and
populace that either had never been gathered before,
or had been lost. Additionally, CPT Gregory incorporated
SSG Del Valle and the CoIST into his mission
planning process. Able Company began focused patrols
and planned missions where the HUMINTer was
the main effort; “We conducted patrols specifically in
order for SSG Del Valle to engage the local population
in specific areas, and this had a tremendous effect
over time.” 10 By integrating into Able Company,
he began to not only spot and assess on every patrol,
but also gained the local knowledge that he could
not have by simply visiting from Camp Fallujah. CPT
Gregory soon recognized that the HUMINTer could
assist in more than just producing reports, and began
to utilize him in planning his political engagements
and information operations messages.
Another innovator was CPT Stew Lindsay, commander
of Charlie Company, 3-509 th IN (ABN) in
North Babil Province, Iraq. Early in CPT Lindsay’s
command, there was no HUMINT support, and he
was forced to run an extensive informant network
in order to gather any intelligence on the ground.
“Local nationals would come and tell me information
all of the time, but because I was not a HUMINTer,
I could not put the intelligence into a format that
would allow me to detain someone.” 11 The Iraqis living
in Charlie Company’s AO were frustrated since
they were providing information on Al Qaida, but the
Coalition Forces were unable to arrest the enemy.
Visits from HUMINTers alleviated some of the reporting
legitimacy problems, but did not adequately
resolve the issue.
After receiving a dedicated 35M, CPT Lindsay
was able to reorganize his operations to focus on
building the intelligence framework necessary to
support one of the most successful company targeting
efforts in the brigade. “I took my HUMINTer
with me everywhere; I took him to Sheik engagements,
Iraqi Security Force meetings, infrastructure
events, raids, you name it…” 12 Additionally, Charlie
Company’s HUMINTer, Sergeant Micah Boor, assumed
CPT Lindsay’s informant network, was able
to apply his craft, and turned most of them into
legitimate sources. SGT Boor played an integral
part in the company’s targeting process as Lindsay
adds, “I was focusing on so many different things
as a company commander; having SGT Boor and
the CoIST there to keep all of the background information
straight and make realistic lethal, nonlethal,
and ISR targeting recommendations was
tremendous.” 13 Through targeting with SGT Boor,
and later 35M Specialist Wayne Border, Lindsay’s
weekly detainment rate rose 800 percent over a
three month period. 14 Finally, CPT Lindsay established
a Company SOP for operations on the objective
that featured the HUMINTer screening potential
detainees with focused tactical questioning (TQ),
while his CoIST performed tactical site exploitation
(TSE) and started detainment paperwork.
Unfortunately, some company commanders were
less open minded with tactical planning or distrustful
of intelligence in general. There was some misuse
at first, until the battalion field grade officers could
be convinced to correct it. The other companies’ success
with their assigned HUMINTers was more gradual,
but it was nevertheless there. It took more time
for them to learn CPT Gregory’s lesson: “If you put
him [the 35M] at the back of the patrol and forget
about him you will get nothing in return, but if you
put him up front and put his talent to work, then
you will get more than you could ever ask for.” 15
Afghanistan
“Yet a man who uses an imaginary map, thinking
that it is a true one, is likely to be worse off than
someone with no map at all; for he will fail to inquire
whenever he can, to observe every detail on his
way, and to search continuously with all his senses
and all his intelligence for indications of where he
should go.” –E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful
Following the Iraq deployment of 4th Brigade
(Airborne), 25th Infantry Division (Light), I moved
from battalion S2 to MICO Commander, and naturally
sought to incorporate the intelligence lessons
learned into training and operations for the current
deployment to Afghanistan. It is difficult to effect
change in a large organization without the support of
the chain of command. But this turned out not to be
an issue as the new brigade commander also believed
strongly in both the importance of the CoIST, and
also the company level placement of HUMINTers. He
had drawn the same conclusions from his previous
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