ne Sunday afternoon in March the 2nd Platoon, Troop B, 38th Cavalry Regiment (Long-range Surveillance [LRS]), conducted dismounted patrols with

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1 U.S. Army/MAJ Kimberly Miller Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 163rd Military Intelligence Battalion, prepares to roll out in mine resistant ambush protected vehicles from Joint Base Balad, Iraq, in April. ne Sunday afternoon in March the 2nd Platoon, Troop B, 38th Cavalry Regiment (Long-range Surveillance [LRS]), conducted dismounted patrols with their Iraqi army (IA) partners from 4th Battalion, 10th Brigade, 3rd Iraqi Army Division, in Avghani, Iraq, a small, predominantly Turko- 40 ARMY December 2009

2 By COL Robert P. Walters Jr. and LTC Daniel E. Soller attachments in the form of a human intelligence (HUMINT) collection team and a multifunctional team (MFT) to augment their reconnaissance efforts in Avghani. In addition, the battlefield surveillance brigade (BfSB) had an airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform overhead, supporting the mission. At 1543 hours, the LRS tactical operations center (TOC) received notification from the BfSB tactical operations center that man town located about 12 kilometers north of Tal Afar in the northern Ninewah Province. This was a routine reconnaissance patrol in the poor, dusty village suspected of being a support zone for insurgents operating between Mosul and the Syrian border. That afternoon, the LRS platoon had some the airborne platform had located an insurgent suspected of poisoning a Coalition force water supply. The airborne sensor located the insurgent in Avghani. Upon notification, the first question the platoon sergeant and acting platoon leader asked the TOC was, Do we have a warrant on this guy? December 2009 ARMY 41

3 The coauthor, COL Robert Walters, commander, 504th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, briefs long-range surveillance (LRS) soldiers before a unit movement in August. U.S. Army/LTC Daniel Soller Soldiers from Troop B, 38th Cavalry Regiment (LRS), descend a steep slope on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq in March. U.S. Army/CPT Donald Neal In late 2008, the governments of Iraq and of the United States signed a status of forces agreement and a strategic framework agreement that outlined the plan for the departure of Coalition forces and the manner in which they would operate within Iraq. The status of forces agreement stipulated that after January 1, 2009, all detentions must be based on a legal warrant signed by an Iraqi judge. Without a warrant, the platoon sergeant was not going to detain anyone. The BfSB coordinated with the Marine Corps operating COL Robert P. Walters Jr. is the commander of the 504th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade (BfSB) in Iraq (dual-hatted as the Task Force Ready and Task Force 504th commander). LTC Daniel E. Soller is the commander of the 163rd Military Intelligence Battalion/504th BfSB in Iraq. environment owners and contacted the unit in Rabiyah that had the warrant. Although the warrant was valid, the unit was committed to another mission and could not respond to the tip. They forwarded the warrant to the BfSB, asking for support to conduct the detention. Armed with a valid warrant and partnered with an IA company, the platoon sergeant initiated movement to the location provided by the airborne ISR platform. The MFT employed technical collection systems to locate and fix the specific house where the insurgent was located. The IA and LRS conducted a soft knock, entered the house and found 10 males of military age. The MFT conducted tactical questioning and positively identified the target insurgent; they then conducted site exploitation of the house to determine if any incriminating material was present. The insurgent was detained by the IA company while the HUMINT collection team (HCT) questioned the remaining males. The HCT sent the names of the nine males to the BfSB to check whether they were on any target list. They were not, and all were released after their personal identification biometrics data was collected. The LRS and IA turned the detained insurgent over for trial and then conducted a mission hot wash. At end state, the LRS platoon with its IA partners and ISR enablers successfully detained an insurgent without firing a shot and without any collateral damage. The ISR en- 42 ARMY December 2009

4 A 163rd Military Intelligence Battalion convoy prepares a night move near Hawijah, Iraq, about 40 miles northwest of the city of Kirkuk, in July. ablers allowed the LRS and IA troops to conduct a surgical operation, at a precise location, to confirm the identification of the warranted insurgent and release the innocent bystanders without disrupting the lives of the Avghani citizens. This mission is an example of the versatility that the BfSB brings to the counterinsurgency (COIN) operating environment. All ISR capabilities cited were either assigned or attached to the BfSB ISR task force headquarters. The U.S. Army Armor Center assumed proponency of the BfSB in early 2009 and began to develop doctrine to define its operating organization and methods. The first doctrine edition for the BfSB is Field Manual-Interim (FM-I) , which is currently in draft form. What makes the BfSB different from the Army of Excellence military intelligence (MI) brigade? The BfSB is unique because of the dual missions it is designed to perform. On the one hand, it is designed to provide the division commanding general with the traditional counterintelligence, HUMINT, signals intelligence (SIGINT) and unmanned aerial systems capabilities that the legacy MI brigade provided direct-support to the division when allocated by the corps commander. It is also designed to conduct independent operations in assigned or unassigned areas within the division operating environment. The BfSB s capability to execute operational control of organic and attached ISR capabilities in assigned or unassigned operating environments across the spectrum of conflict provides the supported commander at the division or corps echelon with a scalable and adaptable ISR capability that can weight a decisive or supporting effort while simultaneously performing ISR tasks elsewhere in the operating environment. Although the BfSB is capable of providing the commander with support throughout the full spectrum of combat, it is particularly well-suited for operating in the COIN environment. It contains extremely robust ISR assets necessary for conventional intelligence in a semipermissive COIN environment. Furthermore, the BfSB ISR task force can accept augmentation by maneuver, fires and effects elements in addition to traditional intelligence assets to perform a variety of missions. Although the BfSB was designed to support the division, to date the BfSBs that have deployed to Iraq the 525th and 504th have operated for the corps commander. The 504th BfSB is the second of 10 planned BfSBs to be fielded in the Army. Organization and Employment Observations The 504th BfSB deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and consisted of a headquarters, two MI battalions, a long-range surveillance troop, a network support company and a forward support company. Upon deployment, the BfSB received an aerial exploitation battalion in an operational control (OPCON) relationship. The future modified tables of organization and equipment will see the fielding of a cavalry squadron that will contain the longrange surveillance troop and two light cavalry troops. In Iraq, the 504th BfSB ISR task force headquarters that operated in Ninewah Province was dubbed TF 504th, whereas the brigade, writ large, was called TF Ready. The TF 504th task organization consisted of the BfSB headquarters and headquarters company; Troop B, 38th Cavalry (LRS); the 268th Network Support Company; Company A, 163rd MI Battalion; a maintenance slice from the 509th Forward Support Company; and an OPCONed aviation reconnaissance system. Alpha Company acted as a direct-support MI company to TF 504th by commanding and controlling a Prophet Triton SIGINT platoon with sensor and a HUMINT collection platoon with four HUMINT teams, and by providing the intelligence collectors for the aviation reconnaissance system. In addition to managing its organic assets, TF 504th coordinated routinely with a number of organizations operating in or near its operating environment to synchronize ISR plans and operations. Those organizations included Multi-National Force-West (the operating environment U.S. Army/LTC Daniel Soller 44 ARMY December 2009

5 U.S. Army/MAJ Kimberly Miller Coauthor LTC Daniel Soller, commander, 163rd Military Intelligence Battalion, hands CPT Donald Neal the B Troop, 38th Cavalry (LRS), guidon for safekeeping as the unit transfers authority to Company F, 425th Infantry, in August. owner), Multi-National Division-North, a heavy brigade combat team (BCT), an armored reconnaissance squadron, three Special Forces operating detachments, military and border training teams, Iraqi army units, and Iraqi police. Each BfSB MI battalion is organized with a headquarters and headquarters company, a technical collection company, a collection and exploitation company, and a counterintelligence and human intelligence company. The MI battalion is organized to provide trained, equipped and mission-ready intelligence collection teams to support the division s operations. In practice, the MI battalions in Iraq supported Multi- National Corps-Iraq but provided teams in direct support to the divisional BCTs. The BfSB military intelligence battalion provides clarity of purpose and direction to the MI collection assets supporting the BCTs. The allocation of battalion resources to improve the effectiveness of teams or to weight a decisive effort is also significant among its responsibilities. As a force provider, the MI battalion conducts its administrative-control responsibilities for direct-support teams but also provides intelligence-collection expertise to the supported maneuver BCTs, similar to what other attachments or augmentees do for the BCT. The MI battalion is well-suited to perform this advisory role because intelligence collection, be it SIGINT or HUMINT, is its primary purpose. By virtue of scale, the MI battalion is able to apply HUMINT or SIGINT collection expertise where it is most needed to support the commander s priorities. Moreover, as a neutral observer of operations in Iraq, each MI battalion is postured to capture and disseminate best practices across the force. During deployment, MI leaders at every level maintained regular contact with support commands to ensure teams were collecting against the commander s priorities. As a result, the MI unit chain-of-command could quickly engage to forestall or correct any problems that emerged. Examples of this included transporting parts from across Iraq for vehicles in Kirkuk to reduce maintenance downtime and making recommendations to supported BCT S-2 sections to improve their organic and direct-support collection missions. In short, the MI battalion was a force provider of directsupport collection assets, but its role, often unseen, was to provide services to enable teams and BCTs to collect and disseminate intelligence more effectively. The battalion and company leadership teams ensured that their ISR teams provided supported commanders ISR enabler support. The Army s battlefield surveillance brigades are a decisive improvement from the legacy corps MI brigades. The BfSBs provide both direct-support ISR teams that are trained and equipped along with an ISR task force that is capable of gaining situational awareness anywhere on the battlefield as required by the supported commander. Based on supported commanders constant requests for BfSB support, the BfSB organizational design is proving to be exceptionally valuable in Iraq and, based on pending deployment requirements, will continue to provide supported commanders with ISR enablers well into the future. December 2009 ARMY 45