Agency grapples with demand for detailed, timely intelligence.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: UPFRONT

In response to a soaring demand for battlefield imagery and digital maps, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency wants to find better ways to manage and distribute data, officials said.

Specifically, the agency is seeking to automate the parsing and analysis of intelligence, and to make its products more easily available to frontline commanders.

"War fighters want a perfect god's eye view of the battlefield, and it can't be more than a minute old," says James Clapper, NGA director.

In reality, "We are a far cry from that," he tells reporters. While NGA analysts are able to supply loads of intelligence to senior commanders, he explains, they have more trouble reaching down to the "last tactical mile," where the fighting takes place.

"Getting high-end, dense geospatial intelligence into the hands of 'disadvantaged users' who are well forward on the battlefield is the issue that many commanders feel is the next big step in NGA's support to operations," writes Ed Mornston, the agency's deputy military executive.

To that end, NGA has asked the Joint Forces Command to create a bridging mechanism to get intelligence to battalion commanders in Iraq and other combat zones. It also recently hired 700 new analysts to help process and feed intelligence to military users.

In the latest edition of its in-house magazine, NGA reports a newly established partnership with Joint Forces Command to "develop joint force doctrine, training, and concepts to meet joint war-fighter requirements for geospatial intelligence support down to the lowest tactical level." Details of how the two agencies will work together, however, are still being negotiated and no formal agreement had been signed at press time, according to a JFCOM spokesman.

Illustrating the problems commanders face on the ground in Iraq was a September 2005 "lessons learned" report that a Marine colonel wrote for Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, head of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

While geospatial intelligence is easily accessible by a Marine Expeditionary Unit commander, information is not available at lower echelons, the report says. "The majority of staff and tactical level intelligence officers and enlisted personnel voiced concern that the process was too bureaucratic, complicated and cumbersome." The satellite imagery provided to tactical commanders in Iraq, the report notes, often is "dated" or "incomplete."

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