20. After Iraq duty, Hunter begat no one. A prospective Hunter II was canceled in favor of Warrior (later Gray Eagle). See Army PowerPoint Briefing; David Milburn, Sigmatech Contractor, Spectrum Manager, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Project Office, PACOM 2012, July 2012.
21. 2nd Lieutenant Matthew Polek, “Supplementing Shadow’s ISR Capabilities with an Expeditionary TUAS,” Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, April–June 2013, p. 15.
22. ScanEagle exceeded 4,000 combat hours in Iraq by July 2005 and 1,000 flight hours rented by the Australian Army in Iraq in 2007. Overall, in February 2006, ScanEagle surpassed 10,000 combat flight hours in less than two years.
23. Richard Whittle, DoD Tries Buying Pixels, not Planes, for Flexible ISR; “It Ain’t Leasing,” AOL Defense, 7 May 2012.
24. Lieutenant Colonel Mark A. Cooter, USAF, Airborne Armed Full Motion Video: The Nexus of Ops/Intel Integration in the Joint/Coalition Environment, Joint Forces Staff College, Joint Advanced Warfighting School, 25 May 2007, p. 7.
25. Robert A. Masaitis, Jr., Advancing Under Fire: Wartime Change and the U.S. Military, Naval Postgraduate School, December 2008, pp. 92–93; John Barry, Michael Hastings and Evan Thomas, “Iraq’s Real WMD,” Newsweek, March 27, 2006.
Abizaid wasn’t the only military official to use such hyperbole. Lieutenant General James N. Mattis, Marine Corps Combat Development Command commander and later Abizaid’s replacement, “lamented the failure of American science to vanquish the roadside bomb. “If we could prematurely detonate IEDs, we will change the whole face of the war,” he said. For “a country that can put a man on the moon in ten years, or build a nuke in two and a half years of wartime effort, I don’t think we’re getting what we need from technology on that point”; quoted in Rick Atkinson, “Left of Boom; ‘You Can’t Armor Your Way out of This Problem,’” Washington Post, October 2, 2007, p. A1 (Part 3 in a series).
26. On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003–January 2005, pp. 100–102, 110–112.
27. On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003–January 2005, p. 113.
28. Cristina Cameron Fekkes, “Defining Conditions for the Use of Persistent Surveillance,” Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009, p. 54.
29. Bill Yenne, Attack of the Drones, p. 83.
30. The Joint Air Power Competence Centre (JAPCC) Flight Plan for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in NATO, Version 5.4, March 15, 2007, p. 5.
31. “OEF Route Clearance Teams to Receive Puma-AE,” Eyes Beyond the Horizon (EBTH) (magazine of the JUAV Program Office), August 2010, pp. 30–31; Adam Baddeley, “With unblinking eyes,” CBRNE World, Spring 2008, p. 40.
32. Rand Corporation, Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003–2006), pp. 45–46.
33. Lieutenant Colonel Mark A. Cooter, USAF, Airborne Armed Full Motion Video: The Nexus of Ops/Intel Integration in the Joint/Coalition Environment, Joint Forces Staff College, Joint Advanced Warfighting School, 25 May 2007, p. 11.
34. Lieutenant Colonel Mark A. Cooter, USAF, Airborne Armed Full Motion Video: The Nexus of Ops/Intel Integration in the Joint/Coalition Environment, Joint Forces Staff College, Joint Advanced Warfighting School, 25 May 2007, p. 19.
35. Lieutenant Colonel Mark A. Cooter, USAF, Airborne Armed Full Motion Video: The Nexus of Ops/Intel Integration in the Joint/Coalition Environment, Joint Forces Staff College, Joint Advanced Warfighting School, 25 May 2007, p. 36.
36. Rick Atkinson, “Left of Boom; ‘You Can’t Armor Your Way out of This Problem,’” Washington Post, October 2, 2007, p. A1 (Part 3 in a series).
37. Rand Corporation, Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003–2006), pp. 45–46.
38. Duty, p. 119.
39. William H. McMichael, “Head of Anti-IED Agency Says It’s Been Effective: Now takes more bombs to get same level of casualties, Army Times, May 21, 2007, p. 24. See also comments by General McChrystal about promiscuous buying; in General Stanley McChrystal, My Share of the Task (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2013), p. 155.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Mind-Set over Mind
1. Duty, p. 129.
2. Duty, p. 128; Remarks to Air War College (Montgomery, AL), as Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama, Monday, April 21, 2008.
3. Duty, pp. 115, 126, 129–130.
4. On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003–January 2005, p. 160.
5. On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003–January 2005, p. 191.
6. On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003–January 2005, pp. 196–201.
7. Major General James O. Barclay III, commanding general of the United States Army Aviation Center of Excellence and the commanding general of Fort Rucker, Alabama; in Emerson Pittman/OCPA Plans, “Unmanned aircraft systems leading fight,” Army News Service, October 7, 2009.
8. Duty, p. 128.
9. Quoted in Defense Science Board, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Fulfillment of Urgent Operational Needs, July 2009.
10. That history is wonderfully told in Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution, pp. 90–108, 118.
11. Duty, p. 130.
12. Duty, p. 105.
13. One fascinating aside is the decision of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROCM 283-05: MQ1 Orbit Demand Study) that tasked the joint arena and the air force to examine Predator supply to the combatant commander in the 2010–2011 time frame, a study that just predated Gates. The purpose was to set spending for the Fiscal Year 08 Program Objective Memorandum (POM), which determines how the air force can spend money. In other words, the air force was fulfilling the tasking it had been given when Gates came into office.
14. Christopher B. Carlile and William S. Larese, “Manned-Unmanned Aircraft Teaming Making the Quantum Leap,” Army Aviation, October 31, 2009.
15. Army Vice Chief of Staff General Richard A. Cody established Task Force Observe, Detect, Identify, and Neutralize (TF ODIN) in June 2006. See David Pugliese, “Task Force ODIN: In the Valleys of the Blind,” Defense Industry Daily, January 15, 2009; Jon W. Glass, “Taking Aim in Afghanistan,” CISR Journal, February 5, 2009.
16. Cristina Cameron Fekkes, “Defining Conditions for the Use of Persistent Surveillance,” Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009, p. 41.
17. Matt J. Martin with Charles W. Sasser, Predator, p. 147.
18. In his first briefing from the ISR Task Force in April 2008, Gates says he learned that of over nearly 4,500 drones worldwide, only a little more than half were in Iraq and Afghanistan; he completely missed the reality that almost all of the drones not forward were small drones assigned to army and marine corps units who also weren’t there. See Duty, pp. 132–133.
19. General Atomics News Release, “The Army IGnat UAV Operationally Available 24/7 in Iraq,” September 24, 2004. In February 2005, a contract for two more IGnat-ER systems was placed. By then, the original three systems had completed over 850 combat missions in Iraq.
20. According to the GAO, “both the air force and the Joint Staff responsible for reviewing Sky Warrior’s [later the program’s name] requirements and acquisition documentation raised concerns about duplicating existing capability—specifically, capability provided by Predator. Nevertheless, the program received approval to forgo an analysis of alternatives that could have determined if existing capabilities would meet its requirements. The Army noted that such an analysis was not needed and not worth the cost and effort. Instead, it conducted a source selection competition and began the Sky Warrior development program, citing battlefield commanders’ urgent need for this capability.” GAO, Opportunities Exist to Achieve Greater Commonality and Efficiencies among Unmanned Aircraft Systems, July 2009, GAO-09-520, p. 16.
21. Del C. Kostka, “Moving Toward a Joint Acquisition Process to Support ISR,” Joint Forces Quarterly (JFQ), issue 55, 4th quarter 2009.
22. General T. Michael Moseley, CSAF’s Scope on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), May 21, 2007; www.af.mil/specials/scope/archive/uav.html; see also Birds of Prey: Predators and America’s Newest UAVs in Combat, p. 84.
Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, commander of Multinational Forces—Iraq and Petraeus’s replacement after he was promoted, took a further shot at this in 2008: drones and other ISR assets should be consolidated under the army corps commander. The conventional army could be more unconventional—like special operations—the future army chief of staff argued, by using the ODIN model across the theater. “ISR is working in Iraq because tactical leaders are maximizing the effectiveness of a limited resource,” Odierno wrote, arguing for decentralized control and the greatest flexibility at the lowest level. The army corps, he said, was “really the highest level at which this can be done with a true feel for what is going on at all levels,” not some distant command center. See Raymond T. Odierno, Nichoel E. Brooks, and Francesco P. Mastracchio, “ISR Evolution in the Iraqi Theater,” Joint Forces Quarterly (JFQ), issue 50, 3rd quarter 2008, p. 52.
23. Duty, p. 127.
24. Duty, p. 129.
25. Duty, p. 130.
26. Duty, p. 130.
27. Major Scott R. Cerone, USAF; “How Should the Joint Force Handle the Command and Control of Unmanned Aircraft Systems? A Monograph,” School of Advanced Military Studies, United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2008.
28. Birds of Prey: Predators and America’s Newest UAVs in Combat, p. 85.
29. Admiral Edmund Giambastiani (Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), “Memorandum for the Deputy Secretary of Defense regarding Executive Agency for Medium and High Altitude Unmanned Aircraft Systems,” July 16, 2007.
30. DOD, USD (ATL), Department of Defense Report to Congress on Addressing Challenges for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, September 2010; Birds of Prey: Predators and America’s Newest UAVs in Combat, p. 86.
31. Duty, p. 127.
32. Duty, p. 127.
33. Statement by Brigadier General Stephen Mundt; Director, Army Aviation Directorate, Deputy Chief of Staff, Army G-3/5/7, before the House Armed Services Committee, Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, United States House of Representatives on US Army Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Programs, June 4, 2006.
34. Remarks to Air War College (Montgomery, Alabama), as Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, Montgomery, Monday, April 21, 2008.
On April 4, Gates sent a memo to Mullen asking for an update on increasing ISR support and for proposals on how to increase more over the ensuing thirty to ninety days. Mullen said that a more comprehensive approach was needed, and Gates decides to establish the ISR task force. See discussion in Duty, pp. 131–132.
35. Air Force News Service, “Predator Combat Air Patrols Double in 1 Year,” May 6, 2008; Associated Press (AP), “Defense Secretary Gates Says Air Force must step up efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan,” April 21, 2008; General T. Michael Moseley, Memorandum for the Deputy Secretary of Defense regarding Executive Agency for Medium-and High-Altitude Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), March 5, 2007.
36. DOD, USD (ATL), Department of Defense Report to Congress on Addressing Challenges for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, September 2010.
37. Duty, pp. 132–133. Another example of Gates’s disregard for his own supposed standards comes in the MRAP decisions he also made. In 2004, Rumsfeld established the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell (JRAC), an office that was supposed to have already ensured that any wartime requests be expedited. The process began with a joint urgent operational need (JUON). Once approved at the JRAC, any parochial service objections were overridden by top-level reprogramming. As one observer notes, Gates’s MRAP accomplishments began with JUONs submitted to the JRAC, “a process wholly enabled by Rumsfeld’s policies, which prevented the service black holes lamented by Gates. Curiously, Gates belittles the JUON and ignores the JRAC.” See www.defensenews.com/article/20140217/DEFREG02/302170032/Commentary-Faulty-MRAP-Recollections?odyssey=mod/newswell/text/FRONTPAGE/p.
38. See US Congress, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Performance Audit of Department of Defense Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, April 2012, p. 6; ISR Leader Q&A: Ensuring Warfighters Have the Intelligence Support They Require, Lieutenant General John C. Koziol, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Joint and Coalition Warfighter Support; Director, DOD ISR Task Force, Geospatial Intelligence Forum (GIF 8.6), September 2010, p. 21; Duty, pp. 132–133.
39. In June 2007, General Atomics flew for the first time a company-owned Block 0 Predator derivative, which would join army combat operations in early 2008. Erik Schechter, “Rush to the sky; U.S. Army quickens the pace of its new UAV program,” Defense News, June 1, 2008; General Atomics Press Release, “First Pre-Production Sky Warrior Aircraft Takes Flight; Maiden Flight Marks Important Milestone in Execution of U.S. Army ER/MP Contract,” June 14, 2007.
40. In response to April 2008 “SECDEF” direction, the program split into two Quick Reaction Capability sets (QRC 1 and QRC 2), each consisting of four aircraft. DOD, Selected Acquisition Report (SAR), MQ-1C UAS GRAY EAGLE as of December 31, 2010.
41. “Quick Reaction Capability-1; Fielding UAS Assets to Ground Commanders Faster,” Eyes Beyond the Horizon (Army UAS PO), January 2010.
42. Timothy M. McGrew, Army Aviation Addressing Battlefield Anomalies in Real Time with the Teaming and Collaboration of Manned and Unmanned Aircraft, Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009, pp. 17–22.
43. Air Force PowerPoint Briefing, Lieutenant General Dave Deptula, Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; Air Force Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Flight Plan, 2009-2047, n.d. (2009).
44. Duty, p. 133.
45. PowerPoint Briefing, UAS Operations and Comparison, Lieutenant Colonel Bruce “Shadow” Black, USAF UAS Task Force, as of March 17, 2010 (ver13).
And of course, following the spiral habit, the air force actually sent two YMQ-9 experimental Reapers to Afghanistan in 2005. See Colonel (USAF) Chris R. Chambliss, “MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper Unmanned Aircraft Systems: At a Crossroads,” Air & Space Power Journal—Español Cuarto Trimestre 2008,1 January 2009.
46. PowerPoint Briefing, UAS Task Force, HQ AF/A2, “Air Force and Army UAS,” March 9, 2009; Paul Fiddian, “U.S. Military’s UAV Mission Increasing,” Armed Forces Journal, February 2008.
47. Captain Jessica Martin, 926th Group Public Affairs, “Reservist member of Predator’s 500,000-hour milestone crew,” Air Force News Service, February 25, 2009.
48. PowerPoint Briefing, HQ AF RPA/UAS Airspace Integration, Steven Pennington, AF/A3O-B, April 15, 2010.
49. Jeffrey Kappenman, “Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Decisive in Battle,” Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ), Issue 49, 2d Quarter 2008; “Army Weapons,” Army, October 2010, p. 322.
50. Duty, p. 243.
51. Duty, p. 243.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Gilgamesh Calling
1. Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta, “The Soul of Gen. Schwarzkopf,” Washington Post, February 24, 1991, p. C27.
2. The air force part of the story is taken from “Talking Points on Air Force’s Efforts in the Bombing and Death of Al Zarqawi, Based on the transcript of Lt Gen [Gary] North,” June 8, 2006, obtained by the author; PowerPoint Briefing, “Warfighting Integration, ITAA Defense Committee Meet,” David Tillotson III, SES, Deputy Chief of Warfighting Integration and Deputy Chief Information Officer, n.d. (March 2009); obtained by the author. See also Michael W. Isherwood, “Airpower for Hybrid War,” Air Force Magazine, October 2009; F-16 Fighting Falcon Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom, p. 14.
3. Much has been written about Zarqawi and his background. See, in particular, Ely Karmon, “Al-Qa’ida and the War on Terror After the War in Iraq,” Middle East Review of I
nternational Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 1 (March 2006).
Zarqawi’s status as a national target elevated because US and foreign intelligence agencies had concluded that he was behind biological and chemical weapons plots. In June 2002, the Jordanian intelligence service notified Baghdad that al-Zarqawi (aka Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh) was in Baghdad under an assumed identity after he and his commanders had conducted crude chemical and biological training experiments at the remote Khurmal camp in northeastern Iraq, in the Kurdish zone and near the Iranian border. Iraqi intelligence told the Jordanian government it could not find Zarqawi. Independent of al Qaeda, he had operated in Herat Camp in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, and had been convicted in absentia for planning the assassination of US diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan.
On January 5, 2003, after an arrest in London, the Zarqawi “network” was implicated in a plot to use ricin poison on the Underground. Further arrests in Europe confirm evidence of crude poisons and toxins.
In his February 5, 2003, presentation at the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell named Zarqawi and others as part of poison cells in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and possibly Italy.
4. Elsa Walsh, “Learning to Spy: Can Maureen Baginski save the FBI?,” The New Yorker, November 8, 2004.
5. General Michael Hayden, Air Warfare Symposium Speech, February 2, 2006; www.afa.org/media/scripts/AWS06_Hayden.html (accessed November 11, 2006).
6. James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (New York: Anchor Books, 2002), p. 329.
7. When a signal arrives at two moving, spatially separated receivers, the receivers measure a difference in phase and frequency. The time when a signal arrives at two spatially separate receivers also yields helpful information. These characteristics are the basis for four methods of geolocation: (1) the angle of arrival (AOA) method, which locates a position using the directional angle of a signal, (2) the frequency difference of arrival (FDOA), which determines the position of the emitter from the difference in frequency of the signal measured between two receivers, (3) the time of arrival (TOA) technique, which calculates the position of the emitter using the precise time the signal arrives at multiple receivers, and (4) time difference of arrival (TDOA), which uses the difference in time when a signal is received at two or more receivers to determine the location of an emitter.
Unmanned: Drones, Data, and the Illusion of Perfect Warfare Page 37