One Small Step for Intel, One Giant Leap for Boots on the Ground

Down and dirty - Intelligence drives operations, or so it should, in any form of warfare. In the counterinsurgency fight this is particularly true - success or failure is dependent on accurate, timely and relevant intelligence. COIN is a small unit fight -- requiring dispersion and decentralization -- with local commanders requiring a 'real' capability to collect, process and disseminate intelligence. A first step in solving a long-standing tactical support shortfall is finally seeing the light of day.

Corps Creates Intel Cells at Rifle-company Level -- Kimberly Johnson, Marine Corps Times

A need for more intelligence analysts in the Corps is forcing infantry operations to get a whole lot smarter, under a new initiative that is for the first time pushing battalion-level intelligence know-how down to the rifle-company level.

The Corps is creating company-level intelligence cells — called C-LICs — in an attempt to plug the hole and curb the loss of valuable intelligence that often goes missing when units pass the baton on the battlefield, Marine officials said...

The C-LIC initiative, launched under the direction of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab in Quantico, Va., will soon be battle-tested by California-based 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, on its next Iraq deployment, slated for early 2008.

Today's irregular warfare, with its lack of a uniformed enemy, makes intelligence gathering vital for enemy identification. To adapt to the emerging threat, infantry companies often create their own versions of ad hoc intelligence cells, said Vince Goulding, director of experimentation plans at the Warfighting Laboratory. But those individual efforts have been piecemeal, because the Corps had no standard training or equipment available, he said.

The new initiative for pushing intelligence analysis know-how down to the lower echelons, however, is about to change all that. Rifle companies will now be able to assess, analyze and disseminate information that they typically had relied on battalion or regimental command to produce...

Preparation for how units approach intelligence collection on the distributed battlefield has been as varied as the units themselves, said Capt. Gabe Diana, project officer for C-LIC at the Warfighting Laboratory.

"Databases were normally made by somebody in the companies, so what you'd see is five different databases within a battalion. Then come [relief in place] time, five more databases and there's just loads of information that's just lost," Diana said.

Rifle companies use the databases for vital intelligence procured from the local area, which can help avoid much of the time lost sending intelligence requests to the battalion or regimental level, Dickey said.

"If we can train ourselves at this level, we can produce the intelligence we're asking for," which could save days of waiting for responses over the duration of a unit's deployment, he said.