The killing of the American-born Yemeni terrorist Anwar al Awlaki on Sept. 30 continues to show how broadly integrated U.S. military operations and intelligence have become. According to media reports, two Predator drones fired Hellfire missiles at al Awlaki as he and three others were traveling in a car. Also killed was Samir Khan, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was the editor of the al Qaeda magazine Inspire.
The deaths of al Awlaki and Khan were the culmination of an intensive effort to track down and eliminate the threat these people posed to America and its citizens. But our ability to conduct such operations depends on accurate and timely intelligence, as well as a robust communications architecture to help choreograph and synchronize the effort.
Prior to 1991, such synchronized operations were more the product of luck and good timing than anything else. We also did not have the benefit of accurate and timely intelligence in the same way that we do today. Up until the end of the Cold War, our intelligence efforts were quite manpower-intensive. Few collection efforts had been automated to the extent they are today and the favorite solution intelligence managers had was to throw people at a problem in the hope that they would stumble upon the answers we needed.
Examples of such efforts can also be found near our area. Vint Hill Farms, near Warrenton, served as a main signals intelligence site during World War II. While their operations were automated by the standards of the time, and they did employ some of the brightest minds in the U.S. Army, it would have been impossible to continually feed intelligence from a site like Vint Hill to an on-going operation like we did in the al Awlaki case. Now our technology has changed that dynamic considerably.
Today, we still need talented people to conduct such operations. The difference is that today’s intelligence professionals have instant access to tremendous databases that are constantly being updated. They can also tap into information streams from a variety of sources, in classified as well as unclassified channels, to provide a much higher definition picture of potential targets and threats. By necessity, they can no longer focus on just performing a simple task like laborers on an assembly line. Now they must understand operational nuances as well as minute changes in the targets they are following.
Today’s intelligence system is by no means foolproof. One seemingly insignificant error can have major ramifications. Nonetheless, it is a vast improvement over what we used even 20 years ago. Today most military operations are intelligence-driven and every combat-tested service member knows that. The operational and intelligence elements of military power have never been more closely aligned. As Congress begins the tough task of getting our fiscal house in order, intel operations is a national advantage we dare not get rid of.
