Home » Intelligence » USDI Seeks Af-Pak Intel Holy Grail

USDI Seeks Af-Pak Intel Holy Grail

By Colin Clark Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 2:46 pm
Posted in Intelligence, International, Land, Policy, Space

The Pentagon created a team one month ago and sent it to Iraq and Afghanistan to figure out how to achieve the Holy Grail of intelligence sharing, one network architecture that shares intelligence from every satellite, UAV and plane and gets it to everyone on the ground and in the air who needs it.

The Integrated Product Team was created by the ISR Task Force at the direction of Jim Clapper, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, in response to urgent requests from commanders, according to Robert Arbetter, director of collection concepts and strategies for Clapper. Arbetter was speaking in San Antonio as part of a panel on persistent surveillance at Geoint, the annual intelligence conference.

The immediate target for the IPT is the Afghanistan and Pakistan theater, but the lessons learned could be applied to any theater and could significantly bolster America’s ability to share intelligence with allies in any conflict.

The IPT is led by Neill Tipton and has 90 days to come up with a solution, Arbetter said.

The networks would carry data from national technical means, the standard euphemism for spy satellites, a Defense Department official confirmed. Sharing data from national technical means with allies at any time raises enormous cultural and security obstacles, so this would mark a significant step forward for coalition operations such as the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

The technical, cultural and security issues seem daunting, Arbetter said he thought the IPT could make a significant dent in these. “Can we do it? No one knows. Should we try? Absolutely,” he said after the panel ended. The USDI official was optimistic that significant improvements in data sharing would result from the IPT: “I’d say the odds are 100 percent that we will improve the situation out there.”

The effort will face considerable obstacles, according to a congressional aide and two intelligence community professionals.

“It is a big deal with many complications,” said the congressional aide.

“It can only be done if people are willing to accept security in a network that would have to be very good but might not be fully compliant or, more likely, not fully tested to NSA or other standards,” said a former intelligence official.

A consultant who deals with technology issues said “the technology and security levels are difficult on this one.” Instead of focusing on distribution of data USDI “should be focusing on analytics and then query what type of information is wanted,” the consultant said.

The IPT hasn’t made its recommendations yet but Arbetter said one way to achieve the data sharing would involve taking an existing network and modifying it instead of creating something out of whole cloth.

The intelligence consultant said that “ground stations are huge in this equation.” They may need to be the focus of how this information is shared and distributed and pointed to Pete Rustan, who was head of ground stations and now leads mission support at the National Reconnaissance Office, as a key person in getting this to happen. The NRO builds and operates the nation’s spy satellites,

The NRO began developing a single network to share all information from national technical means several years ago and Arbetter said USDI “has learned a lot of lessons from NRO” as it develops the new network for Af-Pak.

Two senior intelligence community officials said they thought this is the Holy Grail of intelligence sharing and could lead to revolutions in how military forces plan and execute their operations. How much of the goal can be achieved remains to be seen, they said, but they thought it would lead to major improvements regardless of the obstacles.

[Full disclosure: USGIF, who put on the Geoint conference, paid DoD Buzz airfare and hotel bills so we could cover this event.]

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	Baffled1 October 20th, 2009 at 7:37 pm The Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force have all been trying to come with this for years and have been stymied by Congressional roadblocks, technical challenges, NIMBY attitudes, and SWAP issues. And these are not the least of the problems. If one man can solve this problem in 90 days, then we will all be baffled beyond our most incredulous dreams. LOL
	Tom October 21st, 2009 at 12:51 pm Can anyone say “Information Overload” — it is quite simply to collect all the data available and provide all that data to every user who needs it. Even if all the ‘available’ data could be collected (which I doubt), the total is far too much for anyone to sift through without both automated and manual filtering. Factor in the simple fact that users do not know (and cannot know) exactly what data will turn out to be useful. For any military operation, there will ALWAYS have been some small piece of information that WOULD HAVE made a difference if only the leaders had known about it — but there is simply no way to know in advance what that key piece of information will be. And no way to sift through all the possible information in a timely manner.
	ronnie pond October 21st, 2009 at 2:27 pm There is also the fact that too much information can be dangerous too. We don’t know for sure just who is telling whom what???. It seems that the Taliban gets some pretty good info from some where??? in order to set up their ambushes. And I don’t trust the Pakistan are the Afghanistan Goverments any more then I trust the Taliban!!!.
	FDO October 21st, 2009 at 3:14 pm All military and intelligence organizations have experts that specialize in this. Its call International Security or Foreign Disclosure. The problem is that most Foreign Disclosure Officers (FDO) are experienced civilian Security Specialists .…. they are intelligence professionals yes, under the Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System (DCIPS) who can and do deploy into the combat zone with the troops, but they are still “civilian” U.S. government employees in the eyes of the active duty force. The point is, no Colonel or General wants to be told how to do something by a “civilian” securty guy. The problem is not so much how to do it, but how to do it right. DoD needs to change its culture of arrogance at the higher levels and listen to the troops and specialists on the ground. This proposal is totally doable, but it all hinges on the “Generals” listening to people who are smarter than they are in this area.
	Chief Houston October 21st, 2009 at 3:20 pm This seems to be making the concept of teamwork focused exponentially. The next step is to insure that enough practice time is underbelt to initiate a practice game. Then league play, then semi-finals, etc., before this baby sees the light of day. Helmet fire overload is a reality so the access to this level of info has to be determined and the recepients well trained.
	Robert October 21st, 2009 at 4:51 pm What happens to many times is that someone’s ego gets in the way. They want to get all the credit and give nothing away causing injuries and death because that person wants all the glory and does not share inte.
	@TwiTuts October 21st, 2009 at 6:03 pm The point is, no Colonel or General wants to be told how to do something by a “civilian” securty guy. The problem is not so much how to do it, but how to do it right. DoD needs to change its culture of arrogance at the higher levels and listen to the troops and specialists on the ground. Mimeblogger
	Garry Owen October 22nd, 2009 at 12:40 am What happens if someone in another government starts leaking intelligengce from the U.S. to other contries? Perhaps if the CIA were allowed to do their job a lot of the intelligence would already be collected!
	kevin December 6th, 2009 at 9:02 pm should n,t the CIA be doing there Jobs and prevent info about the U.S from leaking to other counties . I think the whole administration is not looking at the big issues.