Items from 2 people wretchard the cat follows

r Pachauri took over the running of TERI in the 1980s, his
interests centred on the oil and coal industries, which may now seem odd for
a man who has since become best known for his opposition to fossil fuels

Maj. Gen. Bradley A. Heithold, commander of the Air Force ISR agency, said the tracking and killing of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006 provides an example of how the paradigm changed. During the first Gulf War, it was relatively easy for the Air Force to find large Iraqi troop formations, Scud missiles and tanks. Targeting and delivering munitions took far more time.

By the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the sought-after targets were hiding among the civilian population. Predator unmanned aerial vehicles flew 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a total of 600 hours to pinpoint Zarqawi’s location. Once that was done, it took only six minutes for two nearby F-16s to deliver the bombs that killed him.

 “It’s a huge effort to find where they are, and takes very little effort in the end to either kill or capture,” Heithold said.

Maj. Gen. Bradley A. Heithold, commander of the Air Force ISR agency, said the tracking and killing of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006 provides an example of how the paradigm changed. During the first Gulf War, it was relatively easy for the Air Force to find large Iraqi troop formations, Scud missiles and tanks. Targeting and delivering munitions took far more time.

By the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the sought-after targets were hiding among the civilian population. Predator unmanned aerial vehicles flew 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a total of 600 hours to pinpoint Zarqawi’s location. Once that was done, it took only six minutes for two nearby F-16s to deliver the bombs that killed him.

 “It’s a huge effort to find where they are, and takes very little effort in the end to either kill or capture,” Heithold said.

“People are going to have to start thinking about what we are going to do with all this high-def, and how we’re going to process it,” he said. High-def is a “bandwidth hog,” he added, so there may be issues with the communications architecture as well, he noted.

Industry has done an excellent job of providing cutting edge sensors, said Heithold.

“Okay, I have got 27 targets to look at now. Does that mean I have to put 27 guys … on the shift that day?”

Industry now has to come up with the smart technology, machine-to-machine interfaces, that can help sort through all the data. There are 332,000 airmen in the Air Force, Heithold said. And they’re “really busy.”

The military is increasing what it’s putting on the platforms, from full-motion-video to some “pretty significant capabilities,” which he would not specify.

Whatever the solution is to sorting through all this data, it will not be more analysts.

“The answer isn’t throwing more manpower at it because in DoD, we don’t have it … It’s easier for me to get money than it is to get manpower,” he said. “We’re going to have to use technology, smart systems that cipher through the intelligence,” he added.

Another long-standing issue is how to share intelligence with those who need it. Numerous rules and regulations determine who can see what. That goes for members of the U.S. government as well as allies.

“No matter what anybody says, it’s pathetic,” Maj. Gen. John M. Custer, commanding general of Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and the Army intelligence center, said of the information sharing environment.

“There’s no reason for an Italian, Dutch, United Arab Emirates or any other soldier to die because they don’t have the appropriate kinds of intelligence,” he said. “I really don’t have a clue as to why we don’t allow everyone on [SPRNET] in Afghanistan. If you are fighting a war with this nation, you should have access to it.”