Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin - Federation of American ...

trAInInG tHE COrPs
WIT—The Battlefield Commander’s Force
Multiplier in the CIED Fight
Introduction
Weapons Intelligence Teams (WITs)
have been a critical asset in the
War on Terrorism and the
counter improvised explosive
device (CIED) fight
since 2004. WITs are consistently
proving their
worth as the battlefield
commander’s resident
technical intelligence expert
and force multiplier.
These teams are filling a
critical gap and providing
timely and actionable intelligence
to the Warfighter.
Their unique skill sets, training,
experience, and equipment
provide commander’s with the capability
to reach out and influence insurgent
networks before they strike against U.S. and
Coalition forces.
We are training these young men and women to
go into harm’s way, to willfully and purposefully expose
themselves to the most dangerous weapon of
all–an enemy with no regard for human life, an undying
desire to kill us, and the technical means to
succeed at his mission. WITs are helping battlefield
commander’s get at their enemies with unprecedented
success rates. Prosecutions in tribunals and
criminal courts are enjoying much higher conviction
rates thanks in part to evidence and material collected
and exploited by these teams. We are training
and equipping these teams with the singular purpose
of defeating this enemy and his weapons “left
of the boom,” before he can inflict casualties on us
or our Coalition partners.
In this article I will discuss the history, training,
mission, composition, and future of Weapons
Intelligence and the teams that conduct it.
by Major Chris Britt
WIT History. A brief look at the history
of these teams provides the background
necessary to understand
how they work and why they
are such a critical component
in waging a successful
counterinsurgency (COIN)
campaign. As operations
in Iraq transitioned to
Phase IV, the tactics employed
against Coalition
Forces changed dramatically.
The IED became the
weapon of choice against
us and as such “IED” became
a common expression.
Commanders at every level realized
that the IED networks had
to be eliminated. The problem was
that, at that time, there wasn’t an organization
particularly well suited to combat this threat.
As a result, a decision was made that a CIED capability
must be created and fielded as quickly as
possible.
Army leadership at the highest levels took the
lead in the fight against the IED by creating the
Army IED Task Force (TF) in October 2003. It
proved its worth over the following months by reducing
the success rates of insurgent IED attacks
despite an overall increase in the total number of
attacks. In 2004, under the direction of Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, the decision
was made to transform the entity into a Joint
IED TF (JIEDD-TF). In early 2004 JIEDD-TF (now
the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO)), the
U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command
(INSCOM), and the Department of the Army (DA)
G2 began the process of identifying gaps in intelligence
support needed to combat the growing number
of insurgent IED networks. The next step was
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