Posted on 11/02/2005 8:38:48 PM PST by vadkins
With Saddam Hussein’s trial underway, this would be an appropriate occasion to re-visit the persevering efforts that led to that historic day in December 2003 when the Butcher of Baghdad was pulled from his rathole. One of the intelligence techniques employed was the same used by the Able Danger to identify Mohammed Atta.
“Data mining is the slang for it,” Captain Timothy Morrow explained to me. That is, slang for the methods he and his small team employed. Captain Morrow served as intelligence officer for 1/22nd Infantry and credited LTC Russell and Col. Hickey for allowing his staff the leeway to work outside the box. In this case, it meant a free hand to develop a non-standard database that included information from all known sources, which in turn served as the basis for a link diagram. That diagram – an intelligence mosaic if you will – depicted the nature of different enemy factions, including the identities of many of Saddam’s facilitators. Further, Morrow and his staff were given the freedom to share their data directly with other units and agencies, thereby insuring that they received actionable intelligence in a timely manner. To make the process seamless and retain its simplicity, the captain regularly briefed the special operations task force and Major Stan Murphy’s1st Brigade’s intelligence team himself.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
All the links to Able Danger that I've seen is linked from my Able Danger blogroll at QT Monster's left column.
God Bless those very talented minds for doing their jobs so well! I just wish they would have been listened to and feel badly for them for how they are being treated now. Hello...they are the GOOD guys! sheeesh
BTW, wait till the Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame sex tape hits the video stores and knocks Pam and Tommy Lee out of first place.
1st of the 22nd and the 4th ID.
It has tremendous potential...but you have to marry technology with human analysis...step by step. And while it is a tremendous tool...it does consume man-hours. You could turn around and do the same trick with the mafia in the US, drug trade and the capital generated in the US, corrupt congressmen, etc.
I wonder if Able Danger could help OJ find "the real killers"?
Nah. I don't think so.
" “We interrogated them to get new information and to verify older intelligence. Then we passed them off to other agencies and units. We did all of this, including handoffs, as rapidly as possible so no intelligence would get stale.”
Captain Morrow stressed that the database and link diagram had to be simple enough to tie together information flowing in from various sources, e.g., human intelligence (the most important), spot intelligence reports from other units in the field and items such as photos found on captured enemy personnel, photos that might, for instance, depict the bodyguard who carried them posing with a known associate of Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein himself. It was the use of these multiple sources that defined data mining in this case."
Absolutely great post. In this case, it looks like data mining was just one tool in the tool case. The description of the process is super cool. It's like a hybrid blend between police work, which tends to be information rich and relatively little slow paced, and military action, which tends to be fast, above all else, gathering whatever information you can, making the best guess, and acting. I find the whole thing kind of mind blowing.
It would be great if a similiar techique would work on Bin Laden
"It would be great if a similiar techique would work on Bin Laden"
Yes. I suspect bin Laden is out of our reach, may be in Iran or even in China, across the border of Afghanistan. I also suspect he may be dead.
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