By Emelie Rutherford
The Pentagon’s new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-related task force is charged with crafting options for deploying additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability to theater in 30-, 60-, 90-, and 120-day phases, and reporting to Defense Secretary Robert Gates no later than May 1, according to Pentagon documents.
Gates established the Defense Department (DOD)-wide Operational ISR Task Force–chaired by Pentagon Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation Brad Berkson–in a April 18 memo. He announced it Monday, comparing it to the high-profile Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP) task force created last year to rapidly field the armored trucks to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The Operational ISR Task Force will specifically identify and recommend solutions to resource, authority, program and other challenges associated with deploying increased ISR capability to the USCENTCOM AOR,” Gates writes in the April 18 memo. “Speed of development and enhancement of operational capability should be the prime objectives in evaluating all available options.”
In addition to identifying options for deploying ISR capability to Iraq and Afghanistan in 30- to 120-day phases, the task force “shall additionally examine the utilization of ISR assets in support of OIF and OEF and identify options for optimizing their usage,” the memo says.
In other words, Gates told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday the task force has two main responsibilities: looking worldwide at all available ISR resources–including UAVs and piloted aircraft–and then going to Iraq and Afghanistan to see if the commands are making the “maximum possible use” of assets they have.
“If we keep a certain number back here for training, can we look at training in a different way than we have been in the past?,” Gates said yesterday. “Can we maybe squeeze a little bit more of those capabilities over to Iraq or Afghanistan?…The first part of it is to look at the inventory of what we have, and can we get it over there.”
According to April 18 briefing documents on the task force bearing Berkson’s name, Gates “wants to push on the way forces are made available and on how they are allocated to theaters.” Gates also “wants to understand the current laydown, options for changes (resources, authorities, programs), and tradeoffs for pursuing the options.”
Task force plans call for “break out teams that will describe the current asset state and will identify tradeoffs to increase assets in OIF/OEF,” according to Berkson’s briefing materials.
The documents describe seven break-out teams, focused on: military ISR aircraft, non-military ISR aircraft, non-aircraft matters (such as interrogators and human-terrain teams), acquisition, tactical aircraft, operational effectiveness, and “comms and PED.”
Task force members are to come from the offices of program analysis and evaluation [PA&E]; the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics [USD (AT&L)]; the under secretary of defense for intelligence [USD-(I)]; and the assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration [ASD(NII)]; as well as from the joint staff and military services, the briefing materials say.
The task force will report directly to Gates and provide monthly updates “at a minimum,” the Defense Secretary writes in his April 18 memo, which is addressed to the military departments’ secretaries, the under secretaries of defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, and Berkson.
Gates told reporters yesterday he was not making a “dig at the Air Force” during his Monday speech at Maxwell AFB, Ala., in which he talked of struggling to get more ISR assets to theater and announced the new task force.
“I actually referred to all the services,” Gates said. “It really has to do with institutional barriers here to getting things done quickly….There is a tendency to look at a year or two years or three years in terms of programs and so on and sort of processes as usual, and not enough willingness to think out of the box and how do we get more help to the theater now.”
The task force’s creation “underscores how dissatisfied warfighters are with the availability of streaming video and other UAV products,” said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute. While U.S. forces are operation more than 1,000 unmanned aircraft in southwest Asia, most are “low-end systems with modest capabilities,” he said. Competition for “high-end” UAVs like Predator and Global Hawk has generated friction between the Air Force and Army, he said.
Some analysts see the new task force boding well for supporters of increased UAV acquisition.
“This will likely encourage both USAF and [the] Army to add additional resources to UAVs during FY2010-FY2015 POM [Program Objective Memorandum] process,” said Jim McAleese of McAleese & Associates.
This new ISR task force is distinct from a UAV-only acquisition task force lead by Dyke Weatherington, deputy director for unmanned warfare in the AT&L office.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report yesterday critical of DoD’s ISR investment plans.
The report (GAO-08-374), dated March 24, recommends “that DOD develop a future ISR enterprise vision and that DOD take steps to improve its process for identifying future ISR capabilities.”
DoD agreed or partially agreed with some of GAO’s recommendations, but disagreed with a recommendation “to review staffing levels needed for key oversight activities,” the report says.