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2006-09-23 Home Front: WoT

Five Years After 9/11, Pentagon Opens Joint Intelligence Center

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Posted by Fred 2006-09-23 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I know the government moves like cold molasses, but this is really ridiculous. This should have been up sometime in 2002. Just what has been going on in the meanwhile. This is like the Keystone cops.

Posted by SOP35/Rat 2006-09-23 01:17|| 2006-09-23 01:17|| Front Page Top

#2 "There were acronyms to invent, turf queens to mollify, brass to shine, knee pads to issue, special insignia to design, compartments to comparmentalize, access levels to accessorize, forms to formalize, and caterers to select - our plate was full."

Posted by Craick Whinetle9127 2006-09-23 01:41|| 2006-09-23 01:41|| Front Page Top

#3 *snicker*

"...compartments to comparmentalize, access levels to accessorize..."

Werdsmything can be fun, lol.

Posted by .com 2006-09-23 05:33|| 2006-09-23 05:33|| Front Page Top

#4 The snark is funny LOL.

But, you're assuming intel wasn't being shared before. What's really going on here is that over the last 4+ years we've evolved a totally new approach to joint ops across the services. It never was needed before and for sure it never was possible until the availability of some newer communications and software capabilities.

On the technical/operational side, this is one part of DoD's emerging Global Information Grid. Smart weapons as well as commanders (and everyone inbetween) will tap into the GIG, sharing all sorts of info from raw sensor data to ops plans. Building that is NOT going to happen overnight. But it will happen.

Remember all the fights in Congress about reorganizing intel? One of the issues there was whether DOD would lose control of collecting and interpreting intel data in operational theaters.

It took a couple years to peel Negraponte's role away from CIA. It took another year+ for DOD to win the battle to keep the interpretation of the raw intel feeds within DOD when it pertains to the battlefield. Meanwhile, while that battle was happening on the Hill, it looks as if DOD was moving forward to put this in place.

Yeah, 4 1/2 years sounds like a long time. But this isn't a matter of "who gets the office window and what color should the carpets be". This center at STRATCOM is just one part of a MAJOR restructuring of military doctrine, organizational lines of control and technologies. What you're seeing here is another piece of our reworking our military from top to bottom to face 21st century threats. And they're doing it while also fighting in 2 theaters, plus doing major special ops.

Posted by lotp 2006-09-23 07:17|| 2006-09-23 07:17|| Front Page Top

#5 Another sign of that major restructuring that's going on:

The commanding general of SRATCOM is a Marine. A MARINE!!! heading the home of SAC bombers etc. Why? I think it's because STRATCOM is also the home of ballistic missile defense and BMD has become a battlefield operations issue as well as a strategic homeland defense issue.

A Marine heads the joint chiefs of staff.

The chief of staff of the Army is a special operations guy.

It may not be obvious from the outside, but these represent some significant shifts in priorities and doctrine. Schoomaker and the special forces were totally snubbed in Gulf I ... Schwarzkopf had no use for those "cowboy" types in his operational theater.

Now special forces are key to what we're doing, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but many other places too.

There's a huge set of changes happening within our military. It's pretty awesome to see it happen, even though there are some stumbles and some roadblocks from time to time.

Posted by lotp 2006-09-23 07:32|| 2006-09-23 07:32|| Front Page Top

#6 the center will "operationalize" intelligence collection, adding it will "operate at the defense level with national capabilities, but more importantly to respond to the needs of combatant commanders."

Intel won't be tucked away in pretty folders by CIA file clerks, not to be used because it might cut off the flow of information to be filed by CIA file clerks.

Posted by Steve 2006-09-23 08:11|| 2006-09-23 08:11|| Front Page Top

#7 Marines ascending is consistent with Rummy's push for expeditonary forces.

Posted by Captain America 2006-09-23 08:15|| 2006-09-23 08:15|| Front Page Top

#8 Yup.

Posted by lotp 2006-09-23 08:35|| 2006-09-23 08:35|| Front Page Top

#9 These are all Rummy's changes, but he should step down anyway, right J Fn Kerry ?

Posted by wxjames 2006-09-23 11:34|| 2006-09-23 11:34|| Front Page Top

#10 that's last week's talking point, WX

Posted by Frank G 2006-09-23 11:46|| 2006-09-23 11:46|| Front Page Top

#11 We've already had a "JIC" in Europe and in the Pacific region. It's worked pretty well. The one key element that wasn't available was strategic and tactical control of collections. This re-organization gives DOD equal priority with other intelligence agencies for collections. In the past, most strategic collection was controlled by CIA. I'm sure the battle over collections management was a major factor in why it took 4 1/2 years to make this work.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2006-09-23 13:19|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2006-09-23 13:19|| Front Page Top

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