U.S. Army Adds Interrogators

[SWJED]

2 Jan. Baltimore Sun - Military Aims to Bolster Language Skills.

The Pentagon plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years to bolster foreign language skills within the military, a move to correct what is considered a critical handicap as soldiers pursue missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to documents and defense officials.

The effort is part of a broader plan, expected to be unveiled by President Bush this week, that will also include new language programs through the State and Education departments, officials said. There was no immediate estimate on the total cost of the plan, although officials expect it to range in the hundreds of millions of dollars from fiscal 2007, beginning in October, to 2011...

[Jedburgh]

That speaks to my personal nettle - the fact that HUMINT Collectors are no longer required to learn a language at initial entry level (PVT - SPC) and most will be waivered for promotion to SGT without a language, and the requirement only really coming into effect for promotion to SSG.

The demand for HUMINT in the field is very high. However, once again, we are sacrificing quality for quantity. Non-language qualified HUMINT personnel are extremely circumscribed in the missions they are able to accomplish effectively, and require the use of an interpreter as a crutch for much else. I say "crutch" because a HUMINT Collector who cannot speak the language of the operational area is crippled in his abilities (Not to mention the loss of the regional and cultural knowledge the soldier gains during acquisition of the language - especially critical to the HUMINTer).

Instead of taking the hard road to mission effectiveness, and improving language and operational skill training, a critical tool in the HUMINT skill set was simply cut in order to put more bodies in the field.

This will have long-term implications. 97Es used to leave DLI as a PFC or SPC with fresh language skills, and by the time they achieve SSG they matured in their linguistic abilities and became comfortable in using in the manipulative human communications skills that are at the core of HUMINT.

Although there are still a few initial-entry 97Es arriving at DLI, the die has been set. It will take a while for the full effects to be felt, but this was a very damaging decision.

[SWJED]

11 May Los Angeles Times - Army Rules Put on Hold.

The Pentagon has been forced to delay the release of its updated Army Field Manual on interrogation because of congressional opposition to several provisions, including one that would allow tougher techniques for unlawful combatants than for traditional prisoners of war.

The Defense Department's civilian leaders, who are overseeing the process of rewriting the manual, have long argued — along with the Bush administration — that the Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists or irregular fighters. The United States needs greater flexibility when interrogating people who refuse to fight by the rules, they have said...

[Jedburgh]

The "new" interrogation manual has been under development for far longer than the year that the article states. The supposed "Final Draft" of FM 2-22-3 HUMINT Collector Operations (AKO log-in required for the link) was published back in Apr '04. I also have a "Final Approved Draft" version published in Sep '04 - but it seems to have disappeared from AKO. I haven't seen any '05 versions. In any case, the FM has yet to make it into approved doctrine.

I don't recall any provisions in the drafts that specifically approve "tougher treatment" for unlawful combatants. In fact, the Drafts I saw went into greater detail on the Geneva Conventions than did the previous FM, in a manner I thought was intended to address the concerns raised by Abu Ghraib.

That FM is intended to replace the old FM 34-52 Intelligence Interrogation, published in '92. The newer pub addresses a broader spectrum of HUMINT collection than is dealt with in the previous FM, and updates the role of HUMINT in today's force structure.

What seems to have been completely ignored as a resource by the current writers of HUMINT doctrine is the US Army's Vietnam Era interrogation field manual (published in 1969). It's available for download in two parts:

FM 30-15 Intelligence Interrogation

FM 30-15 Part II

In the second link, Chapter 4, Interrogation Support for Stability Operations is of particular interest - both the Draft FM 2-22.3 and the current FM 34-52 do not go into this subject in the same degree of detail.

[SWJED]

According the LA Times of 6 Sep - Army to Use Geneva Rules for Detainees by Julian Barnes.

Bowing to critics of its tough interrogation policies, the Pentagon is issuing a new Army field manual that provides Geneva Convention protections for all detainees and eliminates a secret list of interrogation tactics.

The manual, set for release today, also reverses an earlier decision to maintain two interrogation standards — one for traditional prisoners of war and another for "unlawful combatants" captured during a conflict but not affiliated with a nation's military force. It will ban the use of such controversial methods as forcing prisoners to endure long periods of solitary confinement, using military dogs to threaten prisoners, putting hoods over inmates' heads and strapping detainees to boards and dunking them in water to simulate drowning, defense officials said.

The manual and its related policy directives — the legal framework for interrogations — originally were to be released in the spring. But when State Department officials and Republican senators on the Armed Services Committee raised objections, they were pulled back.

The Pentagon's decision to drop the objectionable provisions appears to mark a victory for advocates of closer U.S. adherence to the protections of the Geneva Convention, an international agreement on the treatment of prisoners and others during wartime. Human rights groups said they planned to study the manual carefully to see what parts of the international treaty it included and what it left out...

[Jedburgh]

The Army states that "The manual has been published in the interest of full transparency, and does not bear "For Official Use Only" markings.". (but when you open the doc, you'll see the FM still has the markings in bold print top and bottom)

FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations, Sep 06

Edit: Updated the link, and the FOUO markings are now gone, replaced by Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

[Jedburgh]

An interesting collection of essays, published by NDIC in Dec 06:

Educing Information: Interrogation Science and Art

...Educing Information is a profoundly important book because it offers both professionals and ordinary citizens a primer on the “science and art” of both interrogation and intelligence gathering. Because this is a book written by and for intelligence professionals, it starts exactly where one might expect it to start – with Dr. Robert Coulam’s superb discussion of the costs and benefi ts of various approaches to interrogation. For those who are (like me) unschooled in the art and science of intelligence gathering, careful study of the table of contents is perhaps the best way to decide which of the papers would provide the most convenient portal through which to enter a realm that is, by the admission of the authors themselves, both largely unexplored and enormously important to our national security. Steven M. Kleinman’s excellent paper on the “KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Review” provided just the historical and theoretical background I needed to feel comfortable with the other papers. This book “works” either way....

[SWJED]

23 September Washington Post - As Army Adds Interrogators, It Outsources Training by Walter Pincus.

Since the Iraq war began, the U.S. Army has quadrupled the number of soldiers it trains each year to be detainee interrogators, according to Army officials involved in the program.

Next year, 1,200 interrogators are set to be trained at the Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., up from about 300 in 2003. "The number being trained is based on the current need of interrogators in theater," said Angela Moncur, deputy public affairs officer at the intelligence center...

The Army is gearing up for the effort by hiring private companies to handle the training. Last month, the service awarded contracts that could grow to more than $50 million in the next five years to three private firms to provide additional instructors to the 18-week basic course in human-intelligence interrogation at Fort Huachuca.

"If you are qualified as interrogator, you now are either in Iraq or teaching others how to do it when they go there," said Pat Gromek, who spent 23 years as an Army intelligence officer and now handles business development for Integrated Systems Improvement Services Inc. in Sierra Vista, Ariz., the site of Fort Huachuca. ISIS is one of the firms selected to supply interrogation instructors.

The contracts call for the companies to provide outside instructors who would train "selected enlisted soldiers in the skills and knowledge required to perform . . . tactical human intelligence collection," said a government notice published earlier this month. Subjects to be covered include how to interrogate and debrief enemy personnel, potential threat forces, warrior skills, intelligence analysis, and military justice and intelligence law, according to a statement supplied by the center. "The laws of land warfare and the Geneva Convention" are specifically listed in an article on the course in Military Intelligence, an Army publication...

[Jedburgh]

Army News Service, 29 Mar 07: NCOs Sought for Human Intelligence

..."Our goal is to quickly infuse 100 staff sergeants and sergeants first class to our HUMINT force from all other career fields," said Sgt. Maj. Fernando Martinez-Irizarry, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2.

"They will be provided accelerated training on basic and advanced HUMINT skills and be assigned to units deploying in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom," he said....

Piss poor post-Cold War reductions led directly to current critical supply and demand problems with tac HUMINT, which - as this additional measure illustrates - continue to be addressed by knee-jerk quantity over quality short term solutions.

You can't shake and bake a senior HUMINT NCO in 24-27 weeks, then immediately deploy him to Iraq or Afghanistan and expect him to effectively manage HUMINT collection ops or conduct any of a myriad of other HUMINT missions, let alone that most critical task of any senior NCO - mentor and train junior soldiers.

The 97E field has already suffered in quality of NCO leadership recently by too-rapid promotion of soldiers as the previously-tiny field has expanded so quickly. So now the Army is fixing the problem of filling mid-to-senior NCO positions by inexperienced personnel within the MOS by filling them with NCOs from outside the field with zero experience....

[Bill Moore]

There are principles, truths, and there is reality.

A close parallel to Jed’s point is one of our SOF truths: You can't mass produce SOF in response to a crisis.

Of course SF, Rangers, and SEALs are doing just that. The pipelines are spitting the kids out in large numbers. I can only speak for SF, the training is still high quality, but as everyone knows the training is only the first step, then you enter the seasoning phase where you are mentored by the gray haired fox for a few years. That doesn’t happen when you change the demographics of the force this quickly. Some think a rotation into OIF or OEF-A will make up for that, but I don’t see that happening. You don’t make up for years of COIN, UW, SASO (old term) earned lessons with one or two rotations into OIF.

Obviously the MI world is experiencing a similar challenge with their HUMINTers. MI was devastated after Desert Storm. I worked closely with MI at the time and I recall a number of experiences Officers and NCOs getting their walking papers. We also starting deactivating units (this was under Bush Senior), and it only got worse under Clinton. The current administration, until relatively recently, didn’t see the need to start expanding the force, so now we’re faced with the reality that we have to mass produce and put a lot of young guys and gals on point without mentors. Life will be their mentor, and “eventually” they’ll get good.

[Jedburgh]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

...MI was devastated after Desert Storm. I worked closely with MI at the time and I recall a number of experiences Officers and NCOs getting their walking papers. We also starting deactivating units (this was under Bush Senior), and it only got worse under Clinton...

I still remember quite clearly how the drawdown affected 97Es - they were offering NCOs generous bonuses to get out for a few years in the mid-'90s. NCO promotions were also virtually frozen for quite a while; one or two token promotions a year at the senior levels. Not to mention unit deactivations and reduction of slots overall significantly affecting assignment options. At the time I didn't care; I was sufficiently engaged with deployments for OPC and UNSCOM. It wasn't until the period just before 9-11 that the stagnation of the field reallly started hitting me.

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

...The current administration, until relatively recently, didn’t see the need to start expanding the force, so now we’re faced with the reality that we have to mass produce and put a lot of young guys and gals on point without mentors. Life will be their mentor, and “eventually” they’ll get good.

Bill, I agree with your last statement. There are already a few natural talents shining amongst the chaff. Unfortunately, the "mass production" mentality produces a helluva lot of chaff, much of'em unable (or prevented by command misuses) to learn the right HUMINT lessons from the COE, and thereby ending up perpetuating the wrong ones. Hopefully the good ones will rise to the top, and have the necessary influence over the field in the long term. I have doubts about that, however, being all too familiar with the MI TRADOC bureacracy. If the future ends up being a reflection of the past, the good ones will end up slugging away operationally, while the incompetent parasites end up running the schoolhouse. In any case, it will be too late to affect the current fight.

[Ski]

The other problem, and I saw this from my time in Afghanistan, is that everyone wants more 97E's. At one point I had to call every command that was under our umbrella and tell them not to request any more THT's or 97E's..there weren't any to go around.

[Jedburgh]

The issue has obviously been decided for the Army HUMINT field:

Updates as of 11 OCT 2006

ATTENTION: THE LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT FOR MOS 97E HAS BEEN SUSPENDED FOR ALL RANKS AND WILL BE REVIEWED ON AN ANNUAL BASIS. ALL SOLDIERS RECLASSIFYING INTO THE MOS WILL NOT PCS TO DLI, BUT WILL INSTEAD BE DIRECTLY ASSIGNED INTO A PRIORITY UNIT. DURING THE SUSPENSION PERIOD, DLI WILL REMAIN AN OPTION FOR 97Es WITH SIGNIFICANT TIME IN THE MOS, BUT ONLY AS A REENLISTMENT INCENTIVE.

ALL 97Es WHO CURRENTLY POSSESS A LANGUAGE ARE STILL REQUIRED TO MAINTAIN PROFICIENCY IAW AR 611-6. ALL SOLDIERS RECLASSIFYING INTO THE MOS MUST STILL EITHER PASS THE DLAB IAW DA PAM 611-21, OR HAVE A CURRENT, PASSING DLPT SCORE IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

SEE MILPER MESSAGE 06-159 FOR FURTHER DETAILS.

Long-term capabilities were already significantly affected when the language requirement was done away with for entry level soldiers (and junior NCOs were able to obtain waivers). This will have a truly crippling long-term effect upon the HUMINT field.

[Steve Blair]

And a shame they went this route. This isn't a field where technology can substitute at all for the actual human being with the right skills and training.

[SSG Rock]

More dumbing down of the Army, so to speak. Sending Soldiers inadequately trained out to the field......amazing, amazingly stupid.