WASHINGTON: After nearly nine years of US presence in Afghanistan, the head of the US Central Command has announced plans to open a new center to train military officers and analysts for assignments in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
US Central Command's chief Gen. David Petraeus has tapped one his most trusted analysts, Col. Derek Harvey (Ret.), to establish and head The Center for Afghanistan Pakistan Excellence.
The new center will focus on integrating all sources of information to develop strategic products for both war fighters and decision-makers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The decision comes as top military officials say the fight in Afghanistan is getting tougher and security is deteriorating.
The decision to set up such a specialized training center for military officials and covert operatives, comes at a time when the Obama Administration has announced that - to succeed against the Taliban - the US must be in the region for a long term, and to be successful, they need to have officials and officers with regional expertise on both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Three years ago, the US Marine Corps opened a similar establishment, The Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning, or CAOCL, which provides classes for the development of regional expertise, not only for Afghanistan and Pakistan, but for all regions to which Marines may deploy.
The Marine Corps is currently considering having every Marine develop a regional expertise as well as least one language other than English - which echoes the narrower initiative set by Petraeus.
CAOCL, based at Quantico, Virginia, offers training to all Marines, both enlisted and officers, Petraeus' plans specially focus on intelligence.
His in-house center at US Central Command will train military officers, covert operatives and analysts who agree to work and focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan for up to a decade.
Harvey, a retired colonel in the Defense Intelligence Agency, was one of Gen. Petraeus' most trusted analysts during the 2007-08 counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq.
Harvey told The Washington Times that the center would build on some of the lessons that he and the military learned in Iraq, not just for counterinsurgency but also in terms of intelligence analysis.
A significant change Harvey intends to bring to the table, according to The Times, is his insistence of reforms in developing reliable intelligence.
The first involves altering the methods of interpreting raw data. He said the intelligence community tends to rely too much on information from human sources such as spies and from signal intercepts such as wiretaps, to the exclusion of reports from people on the ground such as military officers and aid workers.
Harvey said the new center would focus on integrating all sources of information to develop strategic products for both war fighters and decision makers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"We have tended to rely too much on intelligence sources and not integrating fully what is coming from provincial reconstruction teams, civil-affairs officers, commanders and operators on the ground that are interacting with the population and who understand the population and can actually communicate what is going on in the street," he told The Times. "If you only rely on the intelligence reporting, you can get a skewed picture of the situation."
The second reform Harvey advocates involves training. He said many analysts at the CIA, the State Department and other intelligence-collecting bureaus are moved from one country or region to the next after two years, right at the moment the analysts are gaining fluency and expertise in their areas.
The training academy will submerse future analysts, officers and covert operators in Pashtu and Dari language and culture courses. Recruits also will be asked to sign a form that commits them to work on Afghanistan and Pakistan for at least five years.
"These people are going to be working this program for the next five to 10 years," Harvey said told the Times. "We did not plan for the long term. In Afghanistan, we are planning for success, and that requires human capital. We are putting into place the things we need to do for that."
Asked whether the new training commitments suggest a long-term military presence in Afghanistan, Harvey said: "Even if we downsize, we are still going to have investments in South Asia."
