When is information valuable?
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Originally Posted by
Uboat509
Michael C said:
This has certainly become the conventional wisdom but it doesn't square with my experience. Police make extensive use of paid informants and coercion is routinely used successfully in both law enforcement and military circles. My experience in Iraq further lead me to become automatically suspicious of anyone who provided me with "free" information. They usually had an agenda. People like to speak in absolutes like these but, in my experience, they rarely hold up to close scrutiny.
SFC W
Hello. I did outside the wire HUMINT in Iraq for 16 months, attached in direct support to a combat arms BN. For us it was a matter of finding people whose interests (self, family, tribe) coincided with ours at enough points to carefully time a pitch to cooperate. Sometimes this required the application of subtle but effective pressure. Arabs in general, but especially in Iraq, are experts in looking at angles for self preservation and are quick to detect bull####, while smiling to your face and telling you what they think you want to hear. Authentic self interest is the best motivator. Information in our AO was never given for altruistic reasons, or because it was the right thing to do. Ever. This is the hardest cultural lesson for beginning HUMINT folks to learn. In addition, less people over time will come forward to give accurate information to a unit whose actions derive from "movement to contact" command philosophy rather than "think to contact." Surgical and accurate kinetic operations, snatch and grabbing the right people with as small a footprint as possible, which begets more intelligence, which leads to more surgical ops....etc.. That's part of what gets people off the fence. I know S3's like to plan these large cordon and search operations, because they make great powerpoint presentations and have cool sounding code names, but shouldn't be done if smaller targeted ops are available. Again, just my experience: operations planned for the sake of operations. I've seen it. People won't risk coming forward if they don't think the unit can effectively act. 95% of our BN's kinetic operations were based on intel from my team, and were very targeted. The use of money: no problem. I don't mind paying thousands of dollars (MNCI Rewards program) to a source who is delivering HVT's. I have enough checks and balances in my AO to know when or if that is a bad idea and how to deal with it accordingly if it becomes a negative. I knew where my sources lived and who their enemies were. I wouldn't call it coercion, but we did eventually reach that point in our relationship where the source realized it might not be a good idea to screw us over. Like I said, mutual points of interest. It didn't have to be said, it was understood.
Knowing where to put pressure in a family/tribally oriented society can reap rewards, including getting members of the insurgency giving you information. Schoolhouses tends to teach in terms of black and white, which is a natural CYA motivated behavior. Counterinsurgency and, I would imagine, LE street intelligence operations should be seeing shades of gray. It was surreal at times meeting covertly with people on our HVT list, and we always made sure we had the right leverage, but the bigger payoffs are what we were looking for and what we got. I would imagine that much of what works best isn't talked about or formally taught. One tends to look at things a little differently when soldiers are dying around you.
I don't say my experience is normative for every HUMINT experience. I operated in a unique, isolated tribal area for 16 straight months, which gave me the opportunity to really master my AO and who was who. After we had proven ourselves, we had 100% support from our supported BN Commander. I'm talking in the context of actionable intelligence developed over months, which is a luxury I know many units do not have. I also had two very squared away CAT II American citizen interpreters who spoke native Iraqi Arabic - again, something that might not be normative.
By the way, sorry for jumping in here. You guys all seem to know what you're talking about and I know some of you have a lot more experience and historical perspective than I do.
Sorry I missed this earlier.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Michael C
The hardest part is determining whom to kill. The answer is intelligence. Intelligence can be coerced, paid for or freely given.
Well source motivation can and does often alter radically, and what he/she says and does may actually conflict with the facts.
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The question is, what is the most accurate? Coercion is rarely accurate and paid for intelligence is frequently misleading. Therefore, the best intelligence is that freely given.
Operational experience from Malaya, Aden, Kenya, Colombia, Sri-Lanka, Cyprus, and Northern Ireland would not support those statements. Money and sex are huge motivators. Physical and psychological coercion can and work.
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And, the best way to get that intelligence is to convince locals you care about the best outcome. The way to do that is to try and wins hearts and minds.
....and between that ideal and the real world is a whole mess of compromises.
The murky world of the supergrass
The other day the BBC reported on the video evidence given by Saajid Badat in a current US terrorism trial:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17821854
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It is the first time a convicted UK terrorist has entered into an agreement with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to give evidence in a trial against other alleged terrorists....Prosecutors earlier said Badat's "main motivation" in helping had been to prove he had renounced terrorism with actions as well as words....He saw himself and others like him as victims manipulated and exploited by Bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, they said.
This has now been followed up in this wide ranging article:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...upergrass.html
Which ends with:
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...we should not idealise such figures, nor ignore the injustices that reliance on the honesty of criminals and terrorists sometimes entails. But supergrasses do afford a glimpse into the moral squalor of terrorist organisations, while their existence will surely shake the confidence of al-Qaeda cells and their operations. That is something in itself.
Infiltrating AQ: a double edged sword?
Infiltration of an enemy is a well known tactic, it does have unintended consequences sometimes. The story of the Dane Morten Storm has been around awhile and in May 2013 Mark Stout, now JHU and then @ The International Spy Museum, conducted a recommended Q&A:http://www.spymuseum.org/multimedia/...ists-in-yemen/
Clints Watts provided a summary a week ago:http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=1185
No mention was made of a possible unintended result, which today was given a lurid headline in the Daily Mail, citing a CNN interview:
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Was Kenya mall massacre 'mastermind' backed by CIA cash? Disturbing claims by 'double agent who worked with terror suspect for years'
Link:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz2nME8w2l5
MI5 community informer speaks
With official approval a Muslim community informer for the British Security Service (MI5) was interviewed by BBC Radio Four Today programme. You can listen to the short six minute podcast:https://audioboo.fm/boos/1819839-the...unity-informer
The initial approach to him was made by the police, so the person may not be an MI5 informant, but one run in concert by the police and MI5. He repeatedly refers to the role as providing clarification on a person, whether they are linked to extremism.