Paper and COIN: Exploiting the Enemy's Documents

[Jedburgh]

Military Review, Sep-Oct 07: Paper and COIN: Exploiting the Enemy's Documents

....painstaking media collection and exploitation must become an integral part of all our combat efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and wherever else U.S. forces are deployed. Even within the HUMINT field of which it is a part, DOCEX is frequently an afterthought; it is underfunded and understaffed.

Despite the truly heroic efforts of a few within the intelligence community, media collection is rarely emphasized. This writer personally witnessed U.S. Soldiers traipsing through papers blowing around destroyed sites, never once deigning to pick up the material (Kandahar and Nuristan provinces). When confronted, the Soldiers said that investigating such stuff was not part of the package of Soldier skills they had been taught at basic training, nor had it been addressed prior to deployment. This lack of DOCEX awareness is sometimes corrected by aggressive, situationally aware commanders. The Marines and Special Operations Forces appear to be trained up, but our forces need to be universally cognizant of the importance of document recovery and exploitation....

[Webfoot]

I was hoping for some comment, anything really. Thanks, Jedburgh, for posting a slice of my article.

S/F, Webfoot

[Tom Odom]

Good piece and very relevant. We are doing better at training this as part of site exploitation. We trained it before back in the old days

The critical point you make is that it is underfunded and it lacks "sex appeal" for generating monies. That has long been a problem; the other side of this is because it is underfunded and undermanned, there is rarely any appreciable feedback. The below pic is a shot of me captured from video as the Rwandan Patriotic Army G3 Colonel Charles Muheri examined captured documents taken in a raid against an Interahamwe militia training base on an island in lake Kivu in November 1995. As I recall this was a supply request sent to the "rear" in Goma; from it we could pretty well detremine how many bad guys were training and operating on the island. It also gave us further confirmation that a command structure to include formal logistics structure was operating. The fact that we found a shed filled with USAID donor beans that had been distributed in the refugee camps also helped.

We sent in quite a bit of stuff for exploitation and never heard a peep. Understand at this time there were 2 issues on the agenda for every session of the National Security Council. One was the Balkans. The other was Rwanda and the camps in Zaire. The "question" of whether the camps were being used as training and operational bases was a White House PIR.

We answered it and heard nothing. You do that to soldiers too much and they stop looking. I think I can safely speak for both Stan and myself on this point; evals on reporting from the rear are critical motivators. Tell me I am doing good, I'll go do more good. Tell me I doing poorly, I'll try and do better. Ignore me and I'll do what I deem necessary and you get what you get. Many times I requested evals just to make sure someone was reading what we sent. DOCEX needs the same thing and that means money and manning.

Best

Tom

[Steve Blair]

This is a great article, with the point well-made through a number of relevant examples (both good and bad) of the potential of DOCEX. We did this fairly well during Vietnam, and it's a shame that the flashing lights of electronic methods seem to have at least partially obscured this most basic source.

[Cavguy]

Good piece and very relevant. We are doing better at training this as part of site exploitation.

I'll second that. Ft. Knox has the lead on the training program for that, and TRADOC is hot on the subject.

A lack of translators that can be trusted at low levels really slows the DOCEX process due to sheer volume at the tactical level.

[Merv Benson]

Is there some reason why interpreters that we and the Brits have hired in Iraq could not be used as document translators? I understand that the Brits are concerned that their guys might get killed if left behind. My guess is they would be eager to take such a job. I would guess that they have also demonstrated a certain level of trusts at this point.

[Jedburgh]

Is there some reason why interpreters that we and the Brits have hired in Iraq could not be used as document translators? I understand that the Brits are concerned that their guys might get killed if left behind. My guess is they would be eager to take such a job. I would guess that they have also demonstrated a certain level of trusts at this point.

If they're indig, no matter how long they've worked for us, how dependable they seem, or how trustworthy they appear - you can never trust them. You always have to be careful with what you task them with and how much background you impart to them.

In any case, first, the number of available 'terps still does not meet the demand.

Second, there is a significant difference between "interpreting" conversation and "translating" documents. Document translation (in general, with all the caveats that implies) requires far more precision as well as requiring a higher level knowledge of English on the part of the individual tasked with translating the documents. Hell, the guy could be a native English speaker and a near-native fluency Arabic linguist and still require specific subject-matter knowledge in order to effectively translate certain types of documents.

In many cases, the nature of the mission should necessitate immediate on-the-spot document translation. Too often, this is only really possible if you have a soldier in uniform who is fluent in the language.

Once again, this brings me to my personal fork-in-the-eye of DA's "suspension" of the language requirement for HUMINT. An assigned or attached HUMINTer who is language-capable will be able to immediately read out the doc, so the mission leader can decide whether or not that information is immediately actionable or not. But right now, damn near all the HUMINTers being produced to fill much-needed slots can't interrogate, interview, or debrief the indig - let alone translate a document - without using a 'terp themselves.

Talking With Victor Charlie: An Interrogator's Story has some good vignettes about the value of DOCEX that also illustrate my point about the need to understand specialist vocab.