Quote Originally Posted by Merv Benson
The 80 percent figure came from one of the intercepted al Qaeda communications. I will try to find it and post a link.
Merv, I agree 100% with you in that we are the IO campaign to date has been a failure. As Bill stated, there is a great deal of potential leverage to bring into play in a properly orchestrated and synched IO campaign. We do have people (not many, and damn sure not enough for all the missions they are in demand for) with the requisite local and cultural knowledge to develop such a campaign. There's been plenty of doctrinal ink spilled, and lots of high-level discussion, regarding effective integration of IO at the tactical and operational levels, but it ain't happening on the ground.

Not that it matters that much, but the 80% figure Merv quoted from Al-Qa'ida is in relation to pre-attack intelligence gathering rather than media battlespace. In the Al-Qa'ida training manual it states (on page 42 of the pdf file) that ...by using public sources openly and without resorting to illegal means, it is possible to gather at least 80 percent of all information required about the enemy.