Should PE Trump Ignore & Deny The Intelligence Community?

Capt Jeff S. - my opolgies Sir, if I came off sounding that I would ever defend or even consider Hillary. Never in a million years, I know more about that woman and Bill to last me a life time of hate. I was simply defending the Intel aspect of it. A lot of us were used and then thrown away at the end of the Bush administration and I can't even say what happened to a lot of the Intel sector during this last administration.

Let's just say those that survived or didn't end up POW/MIA over seas, well we don't exactly walk around any more with our heads held high. The smart ones got out into a different MOS or just got out all together. Others like me believed the lies and thought we could fix it. Not realizing we were just put up for display, they didn't want us to really uncover anything. They just wanted to show they had a certain number out there looking.

So please forgive my fourth coming. Sometimes my filter appears to be broken at times. I hope you had a Blessed New Year Sir.

SFC (Join to see) - You're preaching to the choir. In the USMC, the S-2 is generally always junior to the Ops Officer. So in effect you are the spank boy for the Ops Officer whenever things get screwed up. The Comm Officer likewise is down in the pecking order and takes the heat when Intel can't be blamed. When things go right it was Ops great planning and when things go wrong it was screwed up Intel and/or bad Comms.

I was in an exercise in Norway some years ago and we had information from Recon that the Dutch were setting up an ambush at a bridge. Well that threw a wrench in the Ops O's brilliant but complicated plan that involved massive coordination between land, air, and sea forces and it completely hinged on his ability to use this one bridge.

Well, the last place they were seen was like 30 km away the day before and the next morning they just appeared. Well, he doesn't want to believe me. So he grills and humiliated me in front of everyone at the brief... Here's basically how the conversation went, and mind you Recon was a part of Ops back then.

OpsO: So Deuce (that's what the call Intel Officer), you mean to tell me those are Dutch troops at this bridge? How do you know they were Dutch?
S-2: Well Sir, your Recon reported it. I assume they have recognition guides with them and matched up the uniforms with what's in their book...
OpsO: Those aren't Dutch. Where were the Dutch seen last?
S-2: Over here, pointing to a spot about 30km away.
OpsO: And you expect me to believe that they moved 30km through mountainous terrain with all their equipment without being seen or heard... At night!!!
S-2: Sir, I'm merely relaying what YOUR people reported.
OpsO: Do they teach analysis in Intel school? Do you know what Terrain Appreciation is? Did you ever do a map study? Do you know how to read contour lines? When they're close together that's steep terrain and it is SLO-GO.
S-2: Sir, I know how to read a map and yes, I've done terrain analysis and map studies. It takes my guys a long time to do prepare a map and most of the time nobody even looks at it. And right now it's a moot issue because there is a platoon of Dutch troops there and they have been reported to be setting up an ambush.
OpsO: So what you're telling me is that somehow these troops got there overnight, without flying, and nobody saw them and you want me to rewrite my plan because you THINK the Dutch are there. (Shaking his head and all of Staff is laughing). Go sit down...

Next day, it's time to pull off this masterpiece plan but oops, there's just a little snag.

It seems that the Dutch ambushed them at the bridge. Our convoy was stopped at this critical choke point with mountains on each side and it was too narrow to turn around. The Dutch shot up the lead vehicle stopping it and they also shot up the vehicles at the tail end of the convoy... And they were on skis!!! They just went up and down the convey killing everything they could. The convoy was on its way to provide security at a landing zone on the other side of the bridge for a heliborne force that they were supposed to link up with, and it was supposed to take them to the fight.

So in come the Helos into a hot LZ and as soon as they land they get shot to pieces. The carnage was so bad that they had to stop the exercise for a few hours to allow for the extraction of all the simulated dead and wounded.

Oh, but it gets better. The helicopters were supposed to pick up troops that were going to secure a beach head for an amphibious landing. So the landing craft arrive and the British have all their guns and kit arrayed on the beach... And they were waving hello to our landing force which they captured and took prisoner as soon as they arrived. The officer in charge of the landing was so mad he almost got in a fight with the British commander!

Now let me straighten something out. I was a Captain, and I was in charge of my shift (night shift) but the actual S-2 for the exercise was a Major. The OpsO that was hiking up his leg and peeing all over me was actually the Asst OpsO but he was given full latitude to conduct operations by his boss, the actual OpsO for the exercise who was a Reserve Colonel. He spent his time politicking and schmoozing with the Norwegians (our hosts) along with Reservist BGen who was in charge of the exercise.

We spent the rest of the exercise fighting our way out trying to inflict as much damage on the OPFOR while retreating. Since it was an exercise, they were magically able to resurrect the dead and let them fight so they could at least benefit from some cold weather training.

The Asst OpsO ate some humble pie but was still defiant and blamed me for not doing more to convince him harder. He never apologized for humiliating me in front of the staff. But his boss was a little nicer. He came by and put in a request for information and said, "Deuce, I want you to find out the status, location, and disposition of the enemy forces because tomorrow we're going to hit them with Cobras and send them running!"

Mind you he said this to me at midnight and it's an exercise so everyone is asleep and there's nobody I can talk to that can provide me with that information!!! I did the best I could but he was asking the impossible, and I couldn't provide him with enough info for him to pull off his "Hail Mary" plan which even with good Intel would not have gone well for the Cobras. ManPADS would have tore them up.

As with anything combined arms, the strength comes from having an overlap in coverage between various elements. For example, tanks and artllery are vulnerable without infantry to protect them and likewise infantry is vulnerable without tanks and arty to protect them. Each by itself is less safe than when they are combined together and the punch they pack has a synergistic effect. The damage they cause doesn't add together... it multiplies and that goes for air power as well. Airfields would get overrun if ground forces didn't protect their perimeter!

One mistake people make with air power is thinking you own the battlefield just because you bombed the hell out of it. You don't! You need a rifleman standing on that ground holding a rifle before you can say you own that piece of real estate. Possession is 9/10 of ownership.

So bottom line, you have to have thick skin to work in Intel. It can be a very interesting job but it has its pitfalls. Much of it is personality driven and you will be tested. It's important that they like and trust you, else nobody's going to listen to you, no matter how good the information you put out is. You're only as good as your last brief... If you want to go far in the field, you have to be a convincing actor and a good politician.

I forgot to mention how the Dutch pulled off their ambush. They had one guy up front breaking trail and they cross-country skiied single file in his tracks through the hilly terrain and exercised good noise discipline. So in the morning all people saw was one set of tracks and didn't think a whole platoon had gone through there. And clearly it wasn't their first time on skis; they did a good job.

The Recon we had for the exercise were reservists, but they were very motivated and did a great job of reporting without being seen. The OPFOR was walking all around one team that was holed up in a snow cave. They almost got stepped on the OPFOR was so closed to them. Well that's my two cents and one of the more memorable experiences I had in the Intel field.

Did, Obama, in his eight years planted his minions deep within our branches of government.
The allegation of Russia influencing our election has been the steady drum beat from the socialist left since the election........"but they have not produce any supporting evidence". But with the support of the left controlled media, they are now demanding a special prosecutor to investigate the allegation....... "investigation with out any verifiable evidence?"
The investigation they know will produce nothing, but just the event provides erroneous fuel to the socialist supporters, therefore accomplishing their goal.
Those minions that are fast to judge Trump as "not my president".
Emotional opinion over intelligent opinion. One should wait until his first 100 days in office, then by his achievements-accomplishments, one can start to form a intelligent opinion. As Lenin stated,"useful idiots".

Cpl Jeff N. - The NYT is not the only source for these concerns. CNN, FOX, and many other outlets are reviewing many of the same reports and raising many of the same questions. PE Trump is even beginning to question in public whether he has been had - and starting to consider the nature of his relationships with Putin and the rest of the Russian government. Warmest Regards, Sandy :)

1LT Sandy Annala - What exactly is the concern? That he will not listen to intel briefs, take advice from his advisors and act on it? Really? Are you talking about something specific like the Russians hacking our election equipment?

Why do you think he is putting a cabinet and national security team together so he can ignore it? This is another non story being floated out by the media. This is just an oped piece, nothing more.

Intel is not always accurate. That is the nature of the business. Are you saying that he should accept whatever is given to him at face value even if they degree of accuracy is low?

1LT Sandy Annala, Cpl Jeff N. makes an excellent point. Think back to when Bush was blamed for Iraq not having WMDs. Intelligence analysts, including me, saw reports of Iraq buying very expensive aluminum tubes used in the gaseous diffusion process to enrich uranium. Iraq of course, claimed some regular use for them, which ignores the cost paid. That and other indicators convinced me that Iraq was ready to begin uranium enrichment, even if they didn't actually have the capability to build the A-bomb. After all, a conventional bomb with a uranium jacket might actually be more damaging, in terms of long term illness, than an A-bomb.

The truth turned out to be that Iraqi scientists liked their position in their society and the money lavished on them. They were lying to their government, buying things they had no use for, to support their lies.

And there were chemical and biological WMDs found in the country, but once there were no nuclear weapons, the press jumped on the NO WMDs bandwagon. (In other words, they willingly lied to support Bush's opposition.) And who was plastered with the blame, and condemned for following "fake" intelligence? Not me and the other analysts.

Trump has not been ignoring intelligence. He's too street savvy to ignore it; he's just not getting what he needs from the CIA right now. (For example, Israel has been briefing Trump on the situation with Iran.) The CIA was told to give him disinformation and to put it bluntly, Trump doesn't trust what they tell him... and should he? Given that the CIA and FBI did their investigations and concluded that Putin meddled in our election... and then tried to blame Russia for Hillary's failures and self-inflicted wounds, would you think they had any credibility? ??? Apparently, the CIA and FBI overlooked all the million$ that Saudi Arabia poured into the Clinton campaign as well, in their analysis of foreign influence in our elections. If I were Trump, I would clean house on those organizations and ferret out all the moles that Obama allowed in before I trusted anything coming from them. FWIW.

Let remember the CIA stated that Pakastan did not nukes up to the point they set two off in a weeks time .

SrA Ralph Gilbert, the CIA also said that the Benghazi attack was a spontaneous protest over a YouTube video that got out of hand. They were clearly carrying the Administration's political water on that one. Why trust them in this political fight now?

Again WOW! Julian Assange and John Bolton now there are two men that the world should take heed of when they speak being outstanding truth tellers. I think the electoral college can negate the popular election if they think the electoral vote winner is a demagogue; never been done but it was set up for the protection of the country and it can do so if they see the need but do not get over heated because politics always comes before the real need of the country.