First, as many have noted, and I found in Iraq, most of the information, or the brain power and boots, was already there for big pieces of immediate solutions---they just needed to be drawn out and consolidated.

Second, drilling down for fine details in any region is at least a six month focused effort at teaching people and establishing links for what you are looking for---then it starts to feed together.

In MND-North, it took about three months, as a side project by DivEng/Terrain/CA to assemble a complete map and assessment of most individual infrastructure sectors. Then, you could understand the context of activities.

But some immediate sectors and problems--roads and bridges, electrical, etc..---where already there--just needed to be brought together, assessed on a coordinated basis---and used.

Putting the stuff together from on high would just be more of the same GIGO. It needs to be consolidated through networks of contacts up and down before people believe in it, use it, and feed it to make it work even better.

It is an information system, and a dynamic one. Just tracking populations, is a real-time thing which has to be coordinated with UN refugee trackers, and real-time field work. Using Now Zad as an example, the population has ranged from 30,000 to zero to maybe 3,000 in a year. If you are going to plan mil or civ activities, you need some clue of now, not then.

What was beautiful about the Sadaam Era systems, like those of any good totalitarian dictatorship or our techno-data, by knowing what was, what is, and what is changing, you can start to identify trends and patterns, chart trading systems (instead of stumbling across seven tractor trailer loads of pot), and finding where the key points are for whatever kind of targeting.

It's a process that has to link to the field, be dynamic, grow organically, and become useful and trusted. Otherwise, it is just another contract or a program.

In civilian planning and public adminstration, we use real-time, field tested stuff. The US needs at least some proxy of rough but actionable systemic data to see bigger pictures. None yet.

Steve