Brief History of Army MI - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

A GUIDE TO STUDYING HISTORY AT FORT HUACHUCAmeans” to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwaitand gave them a deadline of 15January 1991 to do so. Three daysbefore the deadline, the U.S. Congressgranted President Bush the authorityto employ military force. The dayafter the deadline for Iraqi withdrawalpassed, on 16 January, the U.S. andcoalition forces launched a massive airstrike against strategic targets in Kuwaitand Iraq that opened theDESERT STORM phase of the operation.The ground attack began on24 February. One hundred hourslater, on 28 February, Iraq agreed to atemporary cease-fire and it becamepermanent on 3 March when theyaccepted conditions for a permanentend to the shooting.A key to the quick and overwhelmingvictory was the rapid andefficient mobilization of logisticforces to support the campaign. The22d Support Command marshaled300,000 soldiers, 12,000 trackedcombat vehicles, and over 100,000wheeled vehicles in support of theU.S. Army Central Command’s combatforces.In the Army’s history of the GulfWar called Certain Victory, Brig. Gen.Robert H. Scales, Jr., gave an idea ofsome of the problems Army intelligencefaced in that conflict. There wasthe lack of Arab linguists, notablythose familiar with the Iraqi dialect; apaucity of HUMINT from theclosed, tightly supervised Iraqi society;the limited use of radio or radarby the Iraqis to deny SIGINT; andthe absence of good maps of the Kuwaititheater.One of the advantages for theU.S. forces was its familiarity with theSoviet equipment it would encounter,the fruit of years of technical intelligencedirected at the SovietUnion.Some units, like the 101st AirborneDivision, enjoyed good linguistsupport. The 132 linguists of the101st were instrumental in debriefingsome 400 Kuwaiti refugees beforethe DESERT STORM phase.Another difficulty was the scopeof the operations themselves. Theland area was large and intelligence hadthe early mission of enforcing theblockade of Iraq, one that required allair, sea, and ground traffic to be monitored24 hours a day. As the crisisworsened and military action becamea possibility, thousands of targetswithin Iraq and Kuwait had to beidentified and photographed and thedeployments and movements of enemyforces had to be plotted. Overheadreconnaissance had to be deployedin a map-making effort for thetheater of operations.The aerial recon effort was hamperedby the deletion from the inventorythe previous year of the SR-71Blackbird. This aircraft’s high-altitudeand high-speed allowed it tophotograph 30-mile swaths of enemyterritory at 2,000 miles per hour anddo so outside the range of air defenseweapons.Because of the requirement for arapid buildup of large numbers oftroops in the theater, the combat unitswere sent in first, followed by theirsupporting units. So in the firstmonths of the crisis, the troops onthe ground were blinded by the lackof their own tactical intelligencewhich arrived over the next fivemonths. Assigned to XVIII AirborneCorps, the 15th MI Battalion did notarrive until mid-October to providethe Army’s only aerial collection. Toreinforce INSCOM signals intelligencein the theater, the 204th MIBattalion was deployed from Europe.Tactical intelligence, or informationon the specific enemy formationsexpected to be engaged, was producedat Corps level and below. It flowedupward from battalion, brigade, divisionand corps “2” shops, eventuallycoming together at the 513th MIBrigade, a unit under the operationalcontrol of ARCENT, where it wasfused with strategic intelligence pulleddown from national levels of intelligencegathering. This informationwas intended to give the theater commandera broad overview of the developingsituation. The Foreign MaterielIntelligence Battalion of the513th MI Brigade was kept busy exploitingan unprecedented windfall ofcaptured equipment. They were assistedby members of the U.S. ArmyForeign Science and Technology Center.Upon its return to the U.S. afterDesert Storm, the 513th would relocateto Fort Gordon, GA, where itwould collocate with a new RegionalSIGINT Operations Center(RSOC).The commander in the field hadmuch more technology to deploy andmany more decisions to make thanany of his predecessors in history. Butwith all the added complexities, hehad little tactical information to goon, either because his organic intelligenceunits had not yet become operationalin the theater, or if they haddeployed they were positioned far tothe rear to avoid tipping off the enemyof allied intentions. It was notuntil 19 January when the intelligenceunits moved into to their forwardpositions that they could begin towork on those enemy units to theirfront. The strategic intelligence collectedby national-level agencies wasof little use to the commander, ex-46Call (520) 533-3638, DSN 821-3638, FAX (520) 533-5736.