On Point: the United States Army in Operation Iraqi ... - Boekje Pienter

or not CENTCOM, CENTCOM components, and ground units generated useful intelligence,is within the province of this study.Clearly the various intelligence means within the theater produced effective andactionable intelligence that enabled planning and execution, including successful attacks onfleeting targets. CFLCC’s soldiers and marines went to war with a fairly accurate idea ofthe location of the enemy’s conventional units, Special Republican Guard, and many of theparamilitaries. Estimating intentions and tracking discrete Iraqi military units proved difficult,and paramilitary units proved nearly impossible to track and even harder to assess in termsof intentions. Even so, both technical and tactical means of generating intelligence provedeffective. For example, at Objective JENKINS and again at PEACH, TF 3-69 AR benefitedfrom warnings of enemy activity and profited from those warnings. At PEACH, the task force,thanks to intelligence, anticipated an attack from commandos. Prepared for that attack, it alsodefeated an unanticipated attack from conventional units.Assessing intelligence success proved more difficult than arguing that the estimatesproved inaccurate. As debriefs of captured Iraqi generals and their soldiers become available,a more accurate assessment will be possible. After seizing SAINTS, 3rd ID attacked southagainst suspected enemy units, and they found them, or rather, found enemy equipmentoriented south and mostly unmanned. The intelligence system had detected these positions,some of which were well hidden. But that same system lacked the ability to assess theirreadiness and intentions with high resolution. On the other hand, 3rd ID attacked with smallunits, based on high confidence that the Iraqi units’ lack of activity indicated they weredestroyed or combat-ineffective. These attacks intended to verify assumptions based onintelligence estimates.Major General Marks, the CFLCC C2, notes that CFLCC could generate and passintelligence with great success within the limitations of communications technology andthe systems units had to manage information. For example, the links that enabled V Corpsto receive and process national and joint intelligence were in many cases not available in IMEF. Marks recalled that to solve that dilemma, “we stripped away XVIII Airborne Corpscapabilities,” and provided them to the MEF. 37 As noted in a preceding paragraph, the problemcut both ways. A second difficulty stemmed from what the Marine Corps’ lessons learned teamcalled the digital divide. Often units below division level simply lacked the communicationsmeans to receive updated images and other kinds of intelligence that could be shared at higherechelons. Nonetheless, units generally found ways to work around the problem via telephoneor secure email. Still, there are seams based on communications, interoperability, and thestructure or architecture within the CFLCC and its subordinates.No one anticipated or estimated the intentions of the paramilitaries accurately. As Marksput it, “ We did not predict that (the paramilitaries) were going to come out of the cities andexpose themselves to armored vehicles and armored formations without similar protection.” 38Finally, no one believed that US forces could remotely identify and continuously track Iraqiunits that chose to move by infiltration and to shield themselves where and when possible.The ability of the Iraqis to hide, with some success, from the incredible array of technicalintelligence available to the coalition may give pause to those advocating that US forces willbe able to develop the situation out of contact and attack from standoff distances.422