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More ISR intel analysts needed

Much has been made about the need for more unmanned aerial vehicle pilots to keep up with demand in the war zones, but there’s more to it: The service needs to increase the number of airmen trained to analyze the intelligence these UAVs collect.

“It’s what I call the blinding flash of the obvious,” said Lt. Gen. Gary North, U.S. Air Forces Central commander.

The Air Force over the last year has more than doubled the number of round-the-clock UAV orbits over Iraq and Afghanistan — from 12 to 27 — and has had to rapidly train pilots to keep up with the pace. Air Force officials say they want to increase that total to 50 orbits by 2011.

For each orbit, though, about six intelligence airmen are needed to analyze the full-motion video piped back. Those airmen then produce intelligence products — such as maps showing houses visited by targeted insurgents or where certain vehicles stopped — and ship them to ground commanders in theater.

“Behind every one of these [combat air patrols] ... the base of the triangle demands from our [intelligence community] the integrated and synchronized analysis” of the full-motion video and signals intelligence collected, North said.

The number of Air Force National Guard and Reserve airmen analyzing UAV feeds at distributed common ground system has quadrupled, and Col. Jon Kimminau, vice commander of the ISR Agency, said the service will need to add 2,000 active-duty airmen by 2011 to monitor those 50 orbits.

In order to train these new airmen, service officials have made additions to the formal training unit for imagery analysts at Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas. But questions remain over how to properly train these airmen to analyze full-motion video, Kimminau said.

“Right now we teach them the basics at Goodfellow and then most of the training is done on the job because it’s so new,” he said.

Intelligence analysis based on collection from UAV sensors isn’t restricted to full-motion video. Analysts depend on human intelligence and signals intelligence, which includes intercepted cell phone signals, to provide a full picture to ground commanders. The 11th Intelligence Squadron created a fusion cell for just this task, said Lt. Col. Mike Stevenson, 11th’s commander.

“Still, 95 percent of our work is watching FMV,” he said.

Since the 11th stood up in 2006, it has grown from just a few to a force of 240 airmen and contracted imagery analysts. Officials see it growing to 500 in the next couple of years, Stevenson said.

Stood up primarily to analyze intelligence collected by MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers associated with Special Forces missions, the 11th analyzes about half of all the full-motion video collected in Iraq and Afghanistan, Stevenson said.

Another one just like it wanted

Intelligence leaders inside the Pentagon have noticed the strides the 11th has made, naming it the 2007 Intelligence Unit of Year. The 11th has been so successful there have been talks to stand up another squadron identical to it, Stevenson said.

But like other units analyzing UAV feeds, the 11th is not deployed. The airmen often communicate in real time with ground commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then go home in Florida, Virginia and California.

The Air Force has about 10 officers in different joint headquarters working as liaisons. Kimminau said the Air Force wants to triple that number.

One of the first liaisons, Maj. Loree Filizer, earned a Bronze Star in 2006 after she helped develop the intelligence that led to the airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who ran al-Qaida in Iraq. Intelligence gleaned from the MQ-1 Predators that followed Zarqawi’s supporters for weeks is credited with setting up the attack.

“Joint war commanders have sung the praises of these [liaisons],” Kimminau said, “and they definitely want even more of them now.”