Examination of Witnesses (Questions 115-156)
BRIGADIER GORDON
MESSENGER DSO OBE, AIR
COMMODORE STUART
ATHA DSO ADC AND
LIEUTENANT COLONEL
ANDREW MCINERNEY
20 OCTOBER 2009
Q115 Chairman: Welcome, and many
thanks for coming to give evidence. Would you like to set out
briefly who you are?
Brigadier Messenger: I am Brigadier
Gordon Messenger. I am currently the Commander of 3rd Commando
Brigade but, of more relevance to this inquiry, I was the Commander
of Taskforce Helmand up until about six months ago.
Air Commodore Atha: Chairman,
Air Commodore Stuart Atha. I am the Air Officer Commanding No
83 Expeditionary Air Group which means that I am the senior RAF
officer in the Gulf region and in Afghanistan commanding the air
component.[1]
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
Lieutenant Colonel Andrew McInerney. I am the Commanding Officer
of United Kingdom Landing Force Command Support Group, but more
relevant to this inquiry I was the Commander of the IX Group for
Brigadier Gordon in Helmand on Operation Herrick 9.
Q116 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed for coming because you have obviously got direct and important
experience and evidence that you will be able to give us. It appears
that we are about to be moving the strategy in Afghanistan towards
perhaps a more hearts and minds operation, more of a comprehensive
approach. Now that we are beginning to do that though, do you
think the technological tool of ISTAR is going to be as important,
or become perhaps more important? If so, why?
Brigadier Messenger: The first
thing, I think what we are seeing is a sort of continuum rather
than a change in direction; but all the things you allude to are
certainly heading that way. I think ISTAR will be as important
but I think the key to this approach that you outline is a deeper
cultural understanding, a deeper awareness of Afghan culture and
the mindset that both the Taliban and the population in Helmand
and southern Afghanistan have. I think technology will play a
part in that, but can never provide the whole answer. The human
interface, indigenous input into that is going to be key.
Q117 Mr Crausby: Can you tell us
what the key challenges are that commanders face on the ground,
particularly obviously in Afghanistan in getting the right information
when they need it.
Brigadier Messenger: In terms
of information there are often two competing priorities: the first
is Force protection i.e. using our ISTAR in order to protect ourselves
and the civilian population; and the second is developing our
intelligence understanding; and the two may be doing the same
thing at the same time but often they can be competing. The challenge
I think is, firstly, to prioritise what exists in terms of ISTAR
and ensure that it is targeted to the most important areas; and
those important areas are changing all the time. It is the business
of the Commander to ensure that what will always be a limited
asset is focussed on the right area and is providing that information
as efficiently as possible.
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
There is therefore a lot of process required to ensure that all
of those assets are aligned to do that. As Brigadier Gordon said,
that focus may require a focus on one thing at the detriment of
another and there is a decision that has to be made there.
Brigadier Messenger: As a Commander,
with information requirement or a decision that needs to be made,
the first thing that I and the staff will do is identify what
the critical information requirements are; and then (and in this
case Andy was the Commander who led this) you either direct your
own integral ISTAR assets, you bid for assets that exist across
theatre to which you have access, or you seek access to strategic
ISTAR assets that could assist you; and all those three things
play a part. You then fuse the outputs of those and use that as
a decision support, a command support tool. At every level that
is essentially what ISTAR is. It is there to ease the decisions
that are made both down at the section commander level all the
way up to COMM ISAP level.
Q118 Mr Crausby: To what extent do
you think that commanders on the ground understand the information
that is available to them, or that could be available to them,
and is training an issue? What are the priorities as far as training
is concerned?
Brigadier Messenger: I think training
is an issue, and there is a very clear difference between information
and intelligence and you can be swamped by information, and one
of the key things that the system has to get right is to collate
that information and produce intelligence in the areas where it
matters the most. I think there is also an education requirement
for people on the ground to understand what is available, and
that has not always been something we have been good at, understanding
what can be made available to you. Therefore, asking for it or
knowing how to task it is something which we are getting better
at but it is a continuing education process.
Q119 Chairman: Mr Chavez, in the
earlier session, said that it is highly addictive and that bandwidth
is always an issue, in the sense that you would want more bandwidth.
Inevitably, you would want more and more bandwidth, but how much
of a problem is bandwidth?
Brigadier Messenger: My technical
bar is set pretty low. I know that in terms of bandwidth there
is little issue over a sensor that has been directed by, say,
my headquarters down to the headquarters that has tasked that
sensor. I think that direct A to B connectivity exists and bandwidth
is rarely an issue. I think where the challenge is, and it has
been alluded to in previous sessions, is ensuring that the information
that is gathered by that sensor is not only available to me, it
is available to subordinate units, it is available to flanking
formations, it is available to anyone that needs it. That is quite
a significant information management and dissemination challenge
and bandwidth is one of the constraints associated with it.
Air Commodore Atha: Bandwidth
is a challenge, and I know you have recognised that before, and
it continues to be in theatre. There are a number of ways one
can deal with the challenge. At the moment we push a lot of data
around, and whether or not that is the best way of providing the
information that is required is one area that we are looking at.
There is also the way you look at the spectrum, and it is how
you manage the frequency spectrum and co-ordinate better the use
of that spectrum. These are two areas that in theatre we are working
on developing and improving, hopefully.
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
And not only transmitting the information, but making an assessment,
making an analysis, and delivering not just the raw data to the
commander or the decision-maker, whoever he may be, but delivering
the analysed product from that. So that can require less bandwidth
than actually transmitting the raw data, if the process is centralised
and co-ordinated.
Q120 Mr Crausby: Finally, Chairman,
to what extent is all of this technology making a real difference
on the ground and to what extent is it just an investment in technology
for the future? I do not expect you to go into detail on this,
but I suppose the question is this. Is what we have got really
saving lives as far as IEDs are concerned?
Brigadier Messenger: Technology
is more than simply technology for technology's sake. There are
capabilities in theatre which are making an enormous difference
in terms of our broader understanding both of the Taliban and
the cultural environment in which we are operating but also in
terms of saving people's lives in reducing civilian casualties
and the like, and there are capabilities out there which day-on-day
are doing that.
Q121 Chairman: It may be that there
are things you want to say in answer to that question which you
would rather say in private. Possibly the best solution to that
would be for you to write to us a confidential memorandum about
the extent to which ISTAR helps to make a difference in terms
of protection against IEDs. Was there something you wished to
add to that, Air Commodore Atha?
Air Commodore Atha: I suppose
it is the word "transformation" and quite what is the
difference between an improvement and a transformation. I think,
in some ways, there is transformation going on in theatre with
the arrival of General McChrystal and his focus and direction.
I do not think what he is saying is new, but he is bringing a
new energy and a new drive to the campaign, and from where we
are sitting, ISTAR sits at heart of this. This is about generating
information that generates intelligence, which lies at the heart
of the counter-insurgency operation. It drives the direction,
the tempo and the timing of the kind of operations that we are
involved in, but quite whether or not that qualifies for transformation
or just simply an evolutionary improvement, I am not sure.
Q122 Mr Jenkins: The Brigadier used
a term which does not concern me so much as cause me to think
how it works. You said "bid for", not "request",
not "call down", but "bid for" these assets.
Do you bid very often and not secure? What is the process?
Brigadier Messenger: Andy is the
guy who did it over my time, but there are, at every level, priorities
accorded because there are not enough assets available for the
task to hand and, frankly, I think that is an inevitability. Therefore,
at each level there will be a set of priorities and it is the
responsibility of the subordinate commands who are bidding for
that to ensure that their priorities are adequately represented
at the higher level, and there are ways and means around that.
What we used to do was actually rather than simply fill in a pro
forma in advance or send a request up in advance, we would get
to where we considered it important, we would get people to go
to those headquarters, explain what we were trying to do to ensure
that the priority that we felt should be accorded to any particular
task or operation occurred and that we got pretty much what we
wanted, and that was a very successful method of doing it.
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
A system of organic or owned assets means that at each command
level the organisation can allocate its own assets, but above
that there are operational and strategic assets which do have
to be bid for. This is economics of allocating scarce resources
against competing aims, and the point is to make that prioritisation
and for the command element to represent that. Then, also, I would
actually send somebody physically with the requests up the chain
so that were they misunderstood or was the point not made clear,
we could actually affect that decision-making at each point.
Q123 Mr Jenkins: How many times was
the bid unsuccessful? Do you have any idea?
Brigadier Messenger: For deliberate
operations, quite often we would look to conduct an operation
at a particular period but shape the timing of that operation
as to the availability of ISTAR assets, so key were ISTAR assets
to giving us the understanding we needed in order to commit that.
So, yes, we were told, "You cannot have it at this time,
but here is a slot when you can have it", and we amended
our timings accordingly.
Q124 Chairman: The bidding is not
for the information, the bidding is for the assets to collect
the information?
Brigadier Messenger: It can be
both. As I say, you have got the ability to direct, you have got
the ability to bid for and seek a sufficient prioritisation to
get assets which are not directly controlled by you and then you
have access to information that is provided or has been already
collected by assets other than your own. I think those two things
are not mutually exclusive.
Q125 Chairman: Why would there be
a bidding process for information which already exists?
Brigadier Messenger: There is
not; that is my point. The bidding is for assets, but for information
it is simply a case of access to information. There is no bidding
for information.
Q126 Mr Havard: Is there a bidding
process for interpretation of the information, saying, "We
would like an analysis of this information that is collected over
this area over this period of time"?
Brigadier Messenger: No.
Q127 Chairman: Why is there not,
because that is, surely, an asset which is in scarce supply like
everything else?
Brigadier Messenger: In terms
of the analysis of information?
Q128 Chairman: Yes?
Brigadier Messenger: Andy, I do
not know if you can answer that, but we did not experience a blockage
in terms of analysing information that we were gathering once
we had targeted our priorities for that information analysis.
Q129 Chairman: Are we not constantly
told that analysts are in very short supply?
Brigadier Messenger: Which is
why one has to be very specific about what you are actually collecting
against. Rather than just simply providing analysts with a swathe
of information and asking them to produce something, just whatever,
if you correctly outlined your information requirements, if you
focused them in an area, then we did not find a shortage of analysts
a constraining factor.
Q130 Mr Jenkins: Brigadier, to help
us understand it, would it be possible (but probably the information
is not there) for us to look at a period of time—maybe a
week or a month or whatever—when all this bidding and all
this allocation goes on so we get a much better idea of what is
the on-going situation? Not problems, but how you deal with a
situation.
Brigadier Messenger: Andy, do
you want to give a vignette of how this occurred, which might
shed some light on it?
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
Yes. In order to focus our organic assets to know where to look,
rather than just generally look, we did a series of what I call
ISTAR trigger events, where we would pre-bid for and book all
of the ISTAR across the electro-magnetic and human spectrum, and
we tried to work out a period when that could all be stacked together.
It would be a short period because it is a highly concentrated
mass of activity—I am talking four or five hours of concentration—and
it was important to have it all together, not to have any gaps
across any of these capabilities. Then, when that was at a time
and place of my choosing, I would drive in a ground manoeuvre
force, also a reconnaissance force, which would have effect, it
would cause an effect to observe a reaction to that, and so, by
observing a reaction over time and space and across the electro-magnetic
and human spectrum, we could then see what actually the reaction
was to that by the local people, by the Taliban, etc. We learnt
a lot by doing that in its own right but, subsequently, we would
also know where to look in more detail in the future.
Brigadier Messenger: Rather than
saying, "We are interested in this area. Tell us everything
that you know about this area", what you are able to say
is, "We are interested in this area, this area and this area
because we believe that this is what is happening in this area",
and you can then target specific types of ISTAR capability against
it. "In this area we want to know a little bit more about
this", and, again, we can focus analysts into that area there.
So that is how you get around it, by being focused.
Q131 Mr Havard: So you are having
to form pattern types as well by that.
Brigadier Messenger: Yes.
Q132 Mr Jenkins: The idea is to ask
for the supply and demand. You were trying to be helpful, but
if there is more demand than supply, we want to know why there
is not more supply to meet the demand, and I am not sure I can
pick a level of saying, if we pick this level and see the requests
at that level and how many we turned down or altered, we would
have an idea of whether we are meeting the demand. Is it too difficult
to put together?
Brigadier Messenger: I think the
idea of bidding or requesting assets from a higher headquarters
is absolutely what I have grown up with all my military career
and it is something that is going to be with us. There are certain
assets which are more efficiently used at a certain level because
they have pan-theatre or pan-region, but each commander should
own assets that they can directly task themselves. Getting that
sort of balance is pretty normal business and not being the highest
priority of your superior commander is, again, something that
as a military person I am not unused to in whatever theatre, not
only Afghanistan.
Chairman: Okay. I want to move on now.
Bernard Jenkin.
Q133 Mr Jenkin: So far this morning
we have had a very technical and useful conversation, but I wonder
if I could take the conversation a little off-piste to the more
general. What do you think ISTAR capabilities and UAVs mean for
me? What do politicians need to understand about how this changes
the nature of warfare and, indeed, changes the nature of what
capabilities we require for standing military targets, so that
politicians can get a handle on what priority we should give to
those kind of programmes beyond just a tactical level?
Brigadier Messenger: I think ISTAR
should be viewed, above all else, as a means of making commanders
at every level better aware of the factors so that they can make
better, more informed, safer, less collateral damage affected
decisions, and that is the case whether that be in Afghanistan
or in any theatre. It is very much about targeting the awareness
of the commander as they make decisions. In Afghanistan we are
used to having a certain level of capability, a certain level
of awareness made available to us, and I think one of the challenges
for defence is to take that level and extrapolate it from a theatre
specific (Afghanistan) into our more general business, because
I do not think we can walk backwards on the level of information
and intelligence that we are currently giving our commanders.
Q134 Mr Jenkin: Most politicians,
I have to confess, are very, very ignorant about these capabilities,
but when a Secretary of State for Defence or a Prime Minister
becomes aware of what is possible, do you think there is a danger
of having unrealistic expectations about what these capabilities
can achieve?
Brigadier Messenger: I hope not,
but I accept that there is a risk there in that you will never
have full awareness of all factors in making a decision. I never
felt excluded by information that was available, although I did
not know what I did not know, but nor did I ever know all the
factors. One area where I think we are obviously developing and
we are at a relatively low level now is this whole business of
our understanding of the Afghan culture, the Afghan people, and
our understanding of Taliban motivations, Taliban affiliations,
the Taliban relationship with the population and the like, and
that is something in which technology might play a part but it
is about good old grinding human intelligence, it is about sensible
use of the indigenous forces that are arrayed alongside us, and
that is an area where I think we need to work harder.
Air Commodore Atha: Can I add
a couple of things. You are asking what should a politician or
a Secretary of State be aware of? I think there are two principal
things I would perhaps say as an airman. The first one is there
is no such thing as an absolute understanding of what is happening,
what is going on. It is not a science, it is an art, it is judgment,
and we cannot tell you definitively in all cases what is happening.
The second thing is that ISTAR is, as we have said time and time
again, a range of things, of which technology is but one part,
and we accept and understand that some of the technologies are
expensive. This is why we cannot satisfy all the priorities across
the theatre, but the important thing is to take a theatre perspective
about where success in a campaign is going to be delivered and,
therefore, to have a coalition mindset about supporting priorities
which may not be necessarily where you think. We talk about focusing
ISTAR, which is important, but it is also important where we focus
ISTAR and having a coalition mindset so that we take the benefit
of the technologies and the capabilities that our other partners
bring to the party and that when we are in the limelight and we
have the priority, then we take advantage of that. It is taking
a theatre perspective for the greater good of the campaign.
Q135 Mr Jenkin: Finally on this track,
do these technologies undermine the concept of delegated mission
command? Do you feel that Whitehall is looking over your shoulder
much more closely at what you are doing and, therefore, restricting
your manoeuvre capability?
Brigadier Messenger: In terms
of situation awareness at a strategic level, I would not necessarily
say Whitehall is this, I think there is more involvement in higher
headquarters as to what is going on on the ground because they
have that capability. I think we have learned quite a lot. A few
years ago, when this was relatively new technology, there was
a sort of freshness about it which meant that perhaps people did
do that. I think we are now quite used to having the level of
situation awareness that we do and I think there is a greater
understanding that a long screwdriver from higher headquarters
or capitals is unhelpful and that there is a natural resistance
to that now.
Q136 Mr Jenkin: But that risk exists.
Brigadier Messenger: The risk,
I think, exists.
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
If I could add, a tactical perspective on that is that there is
a very human reaction to look at full motion video rather than
look at all the rest of the capabilities because our human brain
can interpret that, and so we do all tend to end up looking at
the TV rather than trying to layer across the electro magnetic
spectrum, and that does give a single perspective, and it is a
human tendency which we are all prone to.
Q137 Mr Holloway: It is the first
time, I think, we have ever had two DSOs giving evidence to the
Committee. I know that you are very big on the sort of softer
side, the local population and, of course, one day you may be
able to smell IEDs from 500kms away, but if you can actually get
the local people to tell you that someone has planted them or
who is making the bombs, that saves lives and quite a lot of time
and money. Do you think we are in danger of getting over reliant
on the technical side because it is easier to watch TV? In this
new evolutionary improvement, this continuum of what we have been
doing in Southern Afghanistan, how do you think that side of the
ISTAR picture will improve because so far I have had a lot of
people say that they have been often acting on very, very imperfect
information?
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
In terms of developing human relations, I think it takes time
and I think that there is a limit to what we as a Western society
and international force will be able to do. Therefore, the key
to this is to develop the capacity of indigenous intelligence
and improve the fusion of essentially indigenous intelligence
with our own, which means there are access issues that need to
be overcome and the like. What I do not think we are in danger
of, and the way I thought your question was going, is to turn
to a sort of Terminator 2 high-tech force. Our approach
is very much about getting soldiers, both Afghan soldiers and
international soldiers on the ground in order to provide the sort
of reassurance and the security that people are after, and that
has a benefit in its own right. The more that they are used to,
the more comfortable they are in the presence of this, the more
confident and reassured they are that we are there to stay and
we are a permanent presence, then the more we will be able to
use the greatest intelligence gathering potential of all, which
is, as you say, the local population.
Q138 Mr Jenkin: Can I move back to
the more technical brief that we have got. There was a programme
called LISTENER that was cancelled a few years ago to facilitate
cross-cueing of UAV information, which still has to be done manually.
Does that mean anything to you on the ground? Did you miss that
capability, or is it something we need to look at?
Brigadier Messenger: LISTENER
is not something I am particularly aware of, but what I do know
is that we had access to other UAV products than our own and we
had the ability to task other UAV products than our own, but that
is also true of other signals intelligence, other human intelligence
and all other forms of intelligence. I would not say that coalition
sharing is perfect, and there are some technological and protocol
challenges still to be overcome, but it is not the sort of impenetrable
barrier that it is often portrayed as.
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
My organisation exists to exactly do that. There is one guy sat
there on a desk with a whole array of collectors from all of our
different assets and those which are loaned to us or allocated
to us, and with a prioritised list of questions to answer he is
seeking to play that orchestra. It might be information passed
by word of mouth or by a yellow sticky but it does enable that
by coming into one central hub across the human electro-magnetic
spectrum, and the human dynamics of who is in which room and all
that sort of stuff have to be overcome but it can be overcome.
Q139 Mr Jenkin: Finally, how important
do you think it is politically in a coalition for the British
to have our own owned and operated UAV capability rather than
relying on other people's sensors, lookers and strikers?
Brigadier Messenger: Going to
the various levels, in terms of the British brigade, or British-led
brigade, I think it is important that we have our own array of
assets, not least for the protection of ourselves, but also in
terms of more direct tasking in things that we see as important.
That is the sort of tactical level of ISTAR. In terms of how much
we contribute to theatre out of ISTAR, we are a relatively small
contributor when compared with the Americans and we get a lot
more access than our assets might suggest. I think that an important
part of us being a player on that stage is being able to contribute
in a particular way at that level. I think that you will always
have this sort of dilemma as to how much of the theatre assets—it
is the same actually with aircraft—do we need in order to
be seen as good coalition members pitching in at a level at which
a nation of our size and status should, and I think we reap quite
a lot of benefit at the tactical level from being able to demonstrate
that we do.
Q140 Mr Jenkin: So very important.
Brigadier Messenger: From my perspective,
yes.
Air Commodore Atha: I think where
the British troops are in Helmand, as we all know, is a crucially
important area of the country. Therefore, it attracts a high priority
with all the theatre resources that there are, and, as a consequence,
we attract a far greater share of the coalition pie, as it were,
than perhaps other areas of the country.
Q141 Mr Borrow: The Committee has
received evidence in the past to suggest that a lot of the information
being collected by ISTAR is information that had already been
collected but that people did not know we had got or could not
access. To what extent is that a problem and what is the MoD doing
to tackle it?
Brigadier Messenger: Firstly,
in any system which relies on overlaying but separable capabilities
I think there will be a degree of duplication, but what we have
to avoid is collecting the same thing in exactly the same way
two weeks, three months and two years later, and that is very
much about access to information that has already been collected,
which is to do with intelligence databases and the like. Of course,
having simply a national database is suboptimal. What we want
is a coalition database. That is moving on. It is recognised,
or has been recognised, as a shortcoming and it is something that
is attracting investment, but I think we have got a little way
to go.
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
Certainly when looking to answer a question, we would first of
all find out if we had the information, as best as we could, though
data basing is a challenge. I would then look to find out do we
have the information from which I could manufacture an answer—we
have got it, collected it, but have not processed it yet—or
do we have the data from which we can work it out before putting
blokes in harm's way or scarce assets against the task. We'd try
to go through that, first of all, in order to make sure that we
were efficient in our use of assets and committal of ground manoeuvre.
A lot of what we are doing as well is looking at a situation and
then going back and looking at it subsequently to see if we notice
any change as well and looking for those differences, whether
that be looking for IEDs or looking for gatherings and changes
in command structure or whatever. It is necessary sometimes to
re-collect on the same target looking for differences.
Q142 Mr Borrow: Are you able to give
any proportion of the amount of data that is collected that was
already held, albeit not in a form that could be readily used?
The work that is being been done is to actually maximise the accessibility
of the information that is available, it would be useful to have
some feel for the scale of that. Is it five per cent of the information
that you get that is in that category or are we talking about
50 per cent?
Brigadier Messenger: I think it
would be very, very difficult to do because, of course, if we
knew that it was information we had already gathered, then we
would be using it. What I could not do is outline where it has
been collected and we have it through any fault of process or
organisation listed. So that would be difficult to do. ISTAR can
be all things to all people. You could flood the skies with full
motion video and the like, but it would not give you much other
than an array of televisions to stare at. What we are after is
targeting exactly what we want, and I go back to this point about
supporting decisions to ensure that they are more effective decisions,
safer decisions and more right decisions.
Q143 Linda Gilroy: Lieutenant Colonel,
you spoke about human dynamics a moment ago. In the evidence that
we had from Intellect they said to us that vital mission types
like convoy, overwatch and base protection depend on a robust
shared situational awareness capability that in turn is dependent
on the ability to interrelate the different pieces of information
quickly and accurately. They go on to say that whilst frontline
personnel have proved stunningly adept at developing makeshift
and workaround solutions to address the sort of missing information,
the air gaps between different systems, especially in applications,
the time and effort which has to be devoted to making sense of
the grab and bag of different solutions could likely be better
spent. Is that something you agree with and, if so, can you give
us a flavour of the extent to which that is an issue?
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
My daily business was pulling all that together—in fact
it was my team's daily business—and improvising (and it
has been referred to earlier) the capabilities which are not traditionally
an ISTAR ISR capability being used in those ways, and there are
lots of innovative ways. ISTAR in its introduction was used very
innovatively compared with how it was originally intended, and
the Committee is aware of that. If a mechanism existed to pull
all that together, then that would be great. I think it is a human
function. I do think the human brain is the function that does
it.
Q144 Linda Gilroy: The limits between
the human interface with all of the ISTAR information are always
going to be there and no amount of technological development such
as we have heard might be possible is going to replace that or
even reduce it.
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
It could reduce it. I do not think it could replace it. I think
when we move from a white board to an electronic spreadsheet,
then possibly it is more sharable because it can be in many different
rooms and on many different desks at the same time; we could have
collaborative ways of working and pulling this together. We could
disaggregate some of the teams rather than having a concentration
of us all having to be in the same place at the same time. Some
technological advances would be useful but I do think, at the
end the day, it is a human brain function.
Q145 Linda Gilroy: The people who
do that are a scarce resource at the moment. Is it something that
would enable us to sustain the sort of operations you do on the
basis of the quantity of people that you have got available? How
should we be looking at the forward needs for skilled people and
developing skilled people?
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
I think the operational tempo at which the organisation is operating
at the moment delivers that progressive experience at different
levels as people progress through their career development and
through the different jobs they will do. That experience of a
military career, or a military/civilian interface career, delivers
a lot of that. The preparatory activity and the mission specific
training delivers a lot of that integration as well and, certainly
at the taskforce or tactical level, the numbers of people that
we could save by this sophisticated system would probably be five
to ten, ones and twos possibly, and actually we would just be
using them better and more efficiently.
Q146 Linda Gilroy: What about Harmony
Guidelines?
Brigadier Messenger: I think there
are specialists in this and I think you have touched on some short-view
specialists in previous sessions, but I think this overall ISTAR
is not a specialisation. Overall ISTAR is now everyone's business,
it is commanders' business, and the fusing of the myriad of intelligence
sources you can get is absolutely front and centre, what the Commander
and his close staff do all the time. As Andy said, with the tempo
of operations: the Royal Marines were on Herrick 5, we are on
Herrick 9, we are going to be on Herrick 14, that is growing a
core of expertise where ISTAR management and the role that ISTAR
plays in contemporary operations is absolutely front and centre,
and I think it is part of the bloodstream now when perhaps ten
years ago it was not.
Q147 Linda Gilroy: In fact, more
personnel are becoming aware of what it can do and are involved
in helping to make it work?
Brigadier Messenger: Yes, absolutely,
and our structures are adapting to reflect that.
Air Commodore Atha: If I may add,
there is the specialist and there is the generalist and there
are some specialisations I know that you have looked at, like
linguists and analysts, in all sorts of way, but the human interaction
in this comes in many parts of this chain, as it were, from the
commander to the planner. One of the areas that we are really
focusing on with ISTAR is this. You can always do more with more,
but trying to do more with the same is what we are trying to do;
so being clever in the way we bring different systems together,
and that does not just mean technology; it is also about how you
fuse in the human intelligence, another source where the human
interaction comes through. Throughout the ISTAR chain there is
a human interaction, not purely in the specialist area, although
that is a crucially important area. There is a generalist interjection,
if you like, throughout it.
Q148 Linda Gilroy: Air Commodore,
you spoke a moment ago about the theatre perspective and the importance
of being able to contribute. Apart from that, is there more that
needs to be done to facilitate sharing between coalition partners?
Air Commodore Atha: Yes.
Q149 Linda Gilroy: If so?
Air Commodore Atha: There are
three main elements of sharing. There is the technological, there
is the procedural and then there is the security dimension to
sharing, and each one of them has its own challenges, and there
are some challenges that sit astride some of them. The technological
is quite obvious, in the sense that we do have some systems that
are very good at what they do but perhaps are not as good at speaking
to other systems as they might be. There is the procedural element,
which is part of policy, and part the human instinct that has
been trained, and is securing the information that you have versus
the balance of the benefit of sharing it. There is that sort of
write-to-release mentality we are trying to promote in theatre
rather than a sort of Pavlovian, "We will keep this to ourselves."
Good intelligence, shared intelligence, is at the heart of that
but there will always be the security side of it and we have to
be careful here that we do not take too much risk to the security
of the information, and each country will have a national position
and that will be one of the challenges of a 42-nation coalition
trying to find a middle way. What we are doing with our systems,
and also the philosophy that has been applied in theatre, is very
much one of sharing and writing to share.
Q150 Linda Gilroy: Could I ask a
final brief question. I visited PJHQ during the summer and learnt
how the lessons learned are fed back in. Is there a loop that
learns about lessons learned on best use of the capability we
have got there?
Brigadier Messenger: Yes, it is
increasingly tried and tested. The proof of the pudding is that
we came back six months ago, we wrote a report at the end and
what we are seeing now are already some of the shortfalls that
we identified being acted upon and improvements already underway,
and I think that is an increasingly robust system. I am confident
that the issues for me as the Commander in the field are understood
by PJHQ and by main building and are being acted upon.
Lieutenant Colonel McInerney:
That process goes on in theatre as well there is a tactical lessons
identified cell staffed by PJHQ which delivers vignettes on a
very tactical basis which we share across the theatre, so that
a rapid lessons identified process is run as well as a more operational
tempo one.
Q151 Chairman: Talking of PJHQ, the
final question that I want to ask is who is in charge of all of
this? PJHQ is in overall general charge of ISTAR assets, commanders
on the ground have a certain tactical level of control as well,
ISAF has a level of control and when Air Vice Marshall Dixon came
in front of us he said that ISTAR governance is a hot topic. Do
you think there are going to be any changes in who is in charge
of all this? Is there going to be an ISTAR Tsar?
Brigadier Messenger: Yes. Who
is in charge of it? I think having a focal point to conduct exactly
the sort of functions that Andy has outlined is key to any headquarters.
We have talked about how this is a much more central issue of
any headquarters now than it has been. Having a single point in
the headquarters where all these various feats come in, where
the analysis is targeted through and that leads to product and
decision support, I think, is an increasingly necessary part of
headquarters at the formation level and above. What we are seeing
in Helmand is exactly that sort of function being provided, and
with the team that has arrived in ISAF with General McChrystal,
again, at that sort of level they are trying to replicate this
single focal point.
Q152 Chairman: Will there be a new
Chief Information Officer actually in theatre under General McChrystal?
Brigadier Messenger: I do not
know the answer to that, Chairman. I do know that the function
of what I think a Chief Information Operations Officer should
be doing is in the pipeline and will happen, but it really depends
on how you define chief information operations. Some would say
that it is linked to strategic communications and the like. I
am not talking about that function, I am talking about the fusion
of ISTAR and intelligence product.
Q153 Chairman: Might there be the
risk of a bottle-neck of information if you shove someone in there?
Brigadier Messenger: That is why
it cannot be stovepiped, it has to be built into the headquarters
and its importance in the overall headquarters has to be understood.
Without being nice to Andy, which I would try never to be, he
was an absolute key staff adviser to me, essentially the right-hand
man, more so than perhaps other staff officers, perhaps your fires
guy who might in the past have felt in that position.
Chairman: Okay.
Q154 Mr Jenkins: It is an interesting
concept, but are you saying that we should collect jointly all
intelligence information and it should not be dependent upon where
it is being collected, either by the Army or the Air Force? Are
you thinking that they will let you get away with just constantly
merging activities so maybe we finish up with one Armed Forces
rather than the three sides we have got today?
Brigadier Messenger: I think we
need to be clear. I am talking about the capability. As far as
I am concerned in terms of the capability, the product that was
generated, I did not care where it came from and I did not care
what organisation delivered it. I think that is not just true
of ISTAR, that is true of everything that I commanded and experienced
in theatre. That is a different thing than generating the equipment,
maintaining the equipment, force generating the equipment and
providing that capability to theatre. That is the domain of the
single services at the moment, and I can see that that is a model
which works.
Q155 Chairman: I have one final question.
If you had been in our position, what would be the question that
would be most difficult for you to answer?
Brigadier Messenger: It would
not be a technical one. It would be; do I think that, through
the application of technology or human factors, we are able to
genuinely understand the cultural environment that we are operating
in, because if you had that context, that innate cultural understanding
of the context you are operating in, then all these little things
that you can see which are of tactical significance you would
be able to put into context. That is an enormous challenge which
is beyond technology and is a lot to do with the Afghan capacity.
I would not say it was the hardest question, but I would say it
is the hardest thing for us to do in this overall. Until we develop
that, then we will not be able to fully maximise the information
that is coming our way.
Q156 Chairman: We are doing the wrong
inquiry again, are we?
Brigadier Messenger: I would not
go there actually.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed,
again, to all three of you for a very interesting and extremely
helpful and illuminating session.
1 Note by witness: The United Kingdom Air Component. Back
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