US to open intelligence training centre specially for Pakistan and Afghanistan

[Naveed Yaseen]

* Centre to focus on integrating all sources of information to help war fighters and decision makers in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: General David Petraeus plans to open an intelligence organisation at US Central Command this week to train military officers, covert agents and analysts who are willing to focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan for up to a decade, The Washington Times reported on Monday.

The organisation, the Centre for Afghanistan Pakistan Excellence, will be led by Derek Harvey, a retired colonel in the Defence Intelligence Agency who became one of the Petraeus’ most trusted analysts during the 2007-08 counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq by predicting in 2003 and 2004 that the Iraqi insurgency would spiral out of control.

In an exclusive interview with The Washington Times, Harvey said the centre would build on some of the lessons that he and the military had learned in Iraq, not just for counterinsurgency, but also in terms of intelligence analysis. He said he believed in two reforms in developing reliable intelligence; the first involves altering the methods of interpreting raw data. He said the intelligence community tends to rely too much on information from human sources, such as spies, to the exclusion of reports from people on the ground such as military officers and aid workers. He said the new centre would focus on integrating all sources of information to develop strategic products for both war fighters and decision makers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Integration: “We have tended to rely too much on intelligence sources and not integrating fully what is coming from provincial reconstruction teams, civil-affairs officers, commanders and operators on the ground that are interacting with the population and who understand the population and can actually communicate what is going on in the street,” he said of his “widening the aperture” approach. “If you only rely on the intelligence reporting, you can get a skewed picture of the situation,” he added.

The second reform Harvey advocates involves training. He said many analysts at the CIA, the State Department and other intelligence-collecting bureaus were moved from one region to the next after two years, right when they were gaining fluency and expertise in their areas. The training academy would submerse future analysts, officers and covert operators in the Pashto and Dari languages and culture courses. Recruits would also be asked to sign a form that commits them to work on Afghanistan and Pakistan for at least five years. “These people are going to be working this programme for the next five to 10 years,” he said. “We did not plan for the long term. In Afghanistan, we are planning for success, and that requires human capital. We are putting into place the things we need to do for that.”

Asked whether the new training commitments suggested a long-term military presence in Afghanistan, Harvey said those decisions were above his pay grade. But he said: “Even if we downsize, we are still going to have investments in South Asia.”

The centre would be coordinating with the Defence Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the (NATO) International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, and Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. Missing from the list, however, is the CIA.

Harvey said the CIA had detailed many analysts to support his new centre, and dismissed claims that the CIA was deliberately cut out of the loop.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...2009_pg1_8