Within days of 4 Mechanized Brigade arriving on Telic XI in April 2008, Second Lieutenant Joanna Yorke Dyer, aged 24, who was attached to 2 Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment to gain operational experience was killed on 5 April, the Corps third fatality in Iraq. She had joined the Battalion Medical Group supporting a patrol when its Warrior triggered a powerful device west of Basra. Three other soldiers, including two Royal Army Medical Corps, one of them another woman, and an interpreter were killed. A fifth soldier was admitted to Basra military hospital. In the same intake as Prince William at Sandhurst, when asked by Brigadier Duncan why she was not seeking another cap badge, her answer epitomized Intelligence Corps past and presents ‘I am joining the Army in order to join the Int Corps’.
By the end of March 2009, as the Coalition continued to disengage, the Multi National Division (South East) had merged with the US-led Multi National Division. A month late, Secretary of Defence John Hutton announced the formal completion of Operation Telic. Within four months, British combat forces had withdrawn from Iraq with the last Intelligence Corps soldier leaving Kuwait in early September.
Northern Ireland
By 2004, the Intelligence Corps in Northern Ireland had the distinct impression that the Province had taken a back seat. HQ 8 Infantry Brigade had moved to Ballykelly in October 2003. In September the following year, when 3 Brigade was disbanded, 122 and 123 Intelligence Sections absorbed some of the NCOs from its 124 Intelligence Section. The last Operation Banner Corps Day began on 21 July with a study afternoon on Corps history and the Museum followed by a cocktail party at Hillsborough Castle. Next day was Families Day and a 1970s Fancy Dress Night at the Officers’ Mess Annex. And then, ten days later, nine years after the Good Friday Agreement, a HQ 39 Infantry Brigade watchkeeper radioed ‘Operation Banner is terminated’. In spite of attempts to discredit its contribution, the Intelligence Corps had come of age during the course of Operation Banner. Its development of Operational Intelligence and Security Intelligence and the maintenance of Protective Security in an operational setting meant, for the first time, that units, police and other agencies in Northern Ireland, England and Europe and other parts of the world came to respect the level of expertise and professionalism of all ranks. Those who served in Northern Ireland should be proud of the commitment and legacy that led to the Peace Process.
With about sixty-five per cent of 1 MI Brigade on operations and thirty-five per cent of the Corps deployed, Force reductions in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Germany and the quality of transferees allowed the Brigade to meet its Future Army Structures, the burgeoning reputation of the Corps led to the Directorate concentrating on configuring its structures to meet Defence Planning Assumptions, a final phase being the addition of a Headquarters Company in the existing battalions and proposals to form a Defence Human Intelligence Unit at Chicksands. This severed the Corps link with the Far East when 10 Intelligence Company, formerly of Hong Kong, was disbanded. The termination of Territorial Army Annual Camps and Mandatory Training Tests meant that the relationships between Intelligence Corps Regular and Reserve battalions were fully integrated. The 633 Reserve officers and soldiers spread over twelve locations between Exeter and Edinburgh were split into:
• 3 (V) MI Battalion of three companies and the Defence Intelligence Staff Support Section at the Ministry of Defence.
• 5 (V) MI Battalion nationwide with Weapons Intelligence, Psychological Warfare, Intelligence Exploitation, Operational Intelligence and Human Intelligence resources. In 2009, thirty-one soldiers were deployed on Full Time Reserve Service.
Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, the six monthly rotational Operation Herrick commenced in October 2003 when two Provincial Reconstruction Teams and the rapid reaction Afghanistan Roulement Infantry Battalion were formed. It was supported by 2 MI Battalion providing a Field Security detachment to advise on protective security and a UK National Intelligence Centre detachment.
After the Ministry of Defence had announced in January 2006 that 3,300 troops would be sent on a stabilisation mission to Helmand Province, where Taliban insurgency and system of government were particularly active, Secretary of Defence John Reid optimistically suggest nine months later that they would return home after three years ‘without a shot being fired’. As HQ Helmand Task Force settled in, the relative lack of existing Preliminary Operations intelligence meant, not for the first time, that British forces would be committed with a near clean intelligence sheet. The UK Task Force was controlled by the Permanent Joint Headquarters. Helmand Task Force was supported by HQ 1 MI Company and 162 Security Section as the Operational Intelligence Support Group. The brigades, as usual, rotated every six months, each one bringing its own Military Intelligence section.
HQ 16 Air Assault Brigade led the deployment on Herrick IV. It was, as usual, supported by 89 (Close Support) MI Section, reinforced by Regulars and Full Time Service Reservists from 3 (V) MI Battalion. As anxiety in the compounds north of Helmand rose, the brigade set out to create a security breakwater by occupying fortified Platoon Bases in Sangin, Musa Qa’ala, Naw Zad and Garmsir but they were soon under siege in intense fighting. The fighting, escalation in civilian casualties and damage to local infrastructure from artillery and air strikes led to increasing alienation and damage to ‘hearts and minds’. A lance corporal was at Naw Zad and a corporal joined a Manoeuvre Outreach Group tasked to destabilize attacks. A 3 MI Battalion (V) warrant officer driving a Land Rover equipped with a heavy weapons fit was wounded in an ambush near Garmsir. On 1 July, Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi, aged 24, was in a sangar on top of regional headquarters in Sangin when a rocket propelled grenade hit the sangar killing him and a Royal Signals corporal and wounding four others. A member of the Light Electronic Warfare Troop, 233 Squadron, Hashmi was born in Pakistan and had moved with his family to Birmingham when he was aged 12 years. His older brother had also served in the Intelligence Corps.
In November 3 Commando Brigade arrived on Herrick V, supported by part of 461 (Commando) Military Intelligence Section; the remainder were on HMS Albion hovering off Sierra Leone. Thoroughly familiar in winter operations, during the six week Operation Volcano, the brigade disrupted mid-level Taliban command structures by clearing twenty-five compounds in the north and south of the Upper Sangin valley, which gave the Royal Engineers opportunities to undertake reconstruction projects near the Kajaki Dam. The dam had been built in 1953 to provide electricity and irrigation to Helmand and Kandahar but of the two of three turbines installed, one was unserviceable. As Task Force levels doubled in February 2007, 12 Mechanised Brigade and its 431 (Close Support) MI Section deployed on Herrick VI and, in Operation Achilles, undermined the customary spring offensive by disrupting insurgent activity from Sangin and Gerick. As the newly-formed 52 Infantry Brigade assembled for Herrick VII, it was supported by 481 (Close Support) MI Section, who assembled while attending their Tactical Intelligence Course at Chicksands and the Combined Arms Staff Trainer at Warminster.
With growing menace of improvised explosive devices a top priority, the provision of intelligence was enhanced by the Battlefield Artillery Targeting System (BATES) beaming images of storage areas and disturbed ground to Imagery Intelligence detachments attached to 22 (Gibraltar 1779-1783) Battery, with whom the Corps already had a long association, and to 57 (Bhurtpore) Battery. The use of drones to collect intelligence was not new to the Army. During the early 1970s, 94 Locating Regiment and its small Imagery Analysis detachment had supported 1st (British) Corps with Midges. As joint UK/US MQ-1 Predator operations escalated in Iraq and Afghanistan, a small Intelligence Corps detachment provided No. 1115 Flight RAF, which was attached to 15 Reconnaissance Squadron USAF at Nellis Air Force Base, with Mission Co-ordinators guiding pilots remotely flying the drones with the feed being reviewed by two Imagery Analysts. The Corps also provides mission support to 39 Squadron RAF pilots flying MQ-9 Reaper drones. The drones also provide surveillance cover for patrols and convoys. Another intelligence asset was the NIMR
OD Sentinel R1 Airborne Stand-Off Radar platform assigned to 5 (Army Co-Operation) Squadron sending images to ground stations at Camp Bastion and Kandahar. In many respects, the fighting in Afghanistan is a battle between sophisticated military intelligence technology and determined guerrillas using motor bikes, communicating with mobile phones and armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and RPG-7 rocket launchers.
The return of 16 Air Assault Brigade on Herrick VIII in April 2008 saw 89 (Close Support) MI Section deploy a sergeant to an Estonian unit at Naw Zad and a lance corporal permanently attached to the 2 Parachute Battle Group. On 17 June, the Corps lost its third woman when Corporal Sarah Bryant was killed east of Lashkar Gah when her Snatch Land Rover, one of six vehicles, detonated a roadside device that also killed three other soldiers and wounded a fifth soldier, who had been checking for improvised explosive devices. Corporal Bryant was serving with 152 Psychological Operations Effects Team supporting the brigade as the Target Audience Analyst – 152 Psychological Operations is part of 15 (UK) Psychological Operations Group that used a radio station network that broadcast music, poetry and debate introduced by local announcers. The Coroner’s Inquiry again focused on the vulnerability of the Snatch. ‘Armed Forces News’ in The Times dated 2 March 2010 suggested that thirty-two soldiers had been killed in similar incidents. In addition to the radio station other projects included spreading information by leaflets and posters, for instance, warning children against picking up ammunition. In October 2012, the Group was awarded the Firmin Sword of Peace for its ‘valuable contribution to humanitarian activities by establishing good and friendly relations with the inhabitants of any community at home or overseas’.
In an operation that required detailed intelligence, in Operation Eagle’s Nest, HQ 16 Air Assault Brigade successfully diverted the attention of the Taliban to a military diversion on a highway while a 100-vehicle convoy moved a 220-tonne electric turbine 108 miles from Khandahar to the Kajaki Dam. NATO hailed the operation’ as a psychological victory that would contribute to winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Afghan people. In October 3 Commando Brigade, returning in Herrick IX, experienced an escalation of improvised devices attacks. HQ 19 Light Brigade rotated on Herrick X in April 2009 and, ahead of the Afghan presidential elections, launched Operation Panther’s Claw to seize canal and river crossings in the Helmand valley and allow a permanent ISAF and Afghan Army presence to be established among Taliban strongholds. Mines and devices remained a serious problem. In Operation Storm, the brigade breached an improvised explosive device belt, attacked Taliban safe areas and forced the insurgents to deploy devices as protection. But by the time 11 Light Brigade arrived in October 2009 on Herrick XI, 19 Brigade had lost sixty-nine killed.
The former brigade was smaller than other brigades and was configured around the Counter Improvised Explosive Device Task Force made up from Weapons Intelligence, a Royal Signals Electronic Counter-Measures Troop, Royal Engineer Search Teams and Improvised Explosive Device Disposal Teams. Applying the Intelligence Cycle was the Brigade’s 491 (Close Support) and 452 (General Support) MI Sections. The enhanced Intelligence Corps support allowed Continuity NCOs to be attached to Battle Group and Company Intelligence Support Detachments. By this time, the Land Intelligence Fusion Centre (Afghanistan) was providing intelligence support for Operation Herrick, in much the same way as had happened on pre-Operation Banner deployments. Managed by 44 Military Intelligence Company using the latest intelligence from Afghanistan, a website and orientation and immersion packs help familiarise battle groups on their operational areas. Short university courses are available for J2 staff. In April 2010, the joint Intelligence Exploitation Force at Lashkar Gah combined Intelligence Cycle skills developed in Northern Ireland and policing techniques learnt from the RUC and Weapons Intelligence with the exploitation of the latest information technology and quickly achieved results. The Corps representation included an officer loaned from the Intelligence Exploitation Force and an Imagery Intelligence IED sergeant expert from the Weapons Intelligence Specialist Company. Attached to the Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment were two Corps monitoring, on a global scale and in Afghanistan, the use of chemical agricultural ingredients in devices. At least twelve attacks had been logged, mainly on girls’ schools.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Conclusion
In many respects Intelligence is more dependent than any other Arm on the quality of its personnel.
Brigadier E. Mockler-Ferryman
The Intelligence Corps has experienced a 70-year, largely unrecognized, journey from the dark days of 1940 through the uncertainty of the Cold War and withdrawal from Empire to its burgeoning existence in today’s conflicts during which it evolved from single service provision to Army to Joint Service and to the complexities of diplomacy and understanding in the international arena. Had the Corps been amalgamated with another Corps, it is conceivable that the quality of British military intelligence and security would have been eroded. The Corps has firm Regimental Alliances with the Australian Intelligence Corps and the Canadian Intelligence Corps/Intelligence Branch of the Canadian Armed Forces and Bonds of Friendship with the Malaysian Intelligence Corps and United States Army Intelligence Corps and with HMS Leeds Castle from 1985 and since 2007 with HMS Talent from 2007.
The Corps has always maintained that its role is to provide a critical operational resource, and yet, it is only in recent history that commanders, at all levels, have recognised before defeats that good intelligence and security wins conflicts and reduces casualties. Too often after 1945, the Armed Forces deployed to operational zones with little or no knowledge about the threat, notably Palestine, Malaya, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, the Falklands and the Gulf War. In spite of these intelligence failures, the Corps proved flexible enough to supply units and individuals at short notice and rose to the challenge of repairing the damage. The Corps involvement in recent international operations has seen a steep learning curve in its development of using a sizeable array of collection resources ranging from the ancient art of Human Intelligence to drones. The growth of intelligence as a resource has grown to roughly twice the size that it was in 1969, at the beginning of the 37-year Operation Banner in Northern Ireland.
The second capability that first emerged in the First World War, was evident during the Second World War and continued through the Cold War into the modern era is security and counter-intelligence. The Corps has been in the forefront of protecting the Army, in peace and war, and its secrets, technology and equipment and strength and weaknesses espionage from sabotage, subversion and terrorism and then squared up to interferences from hostile intelligence services and radicalization in paramilitary-type organisations. Rightly or wrongly, this presence has allowed the Corps to claim that it is on permanent active service.
An underlying theme of the success of the Corps is exemplified by Brigadier Springfield’s comment in the early 1990s that he was the only Director in the Army able to send a soldier, of any rank, Regular or Reservist, anywhere in the world at short notice, sometimes alone, often in civilian clothes, and for that soldier to use his initiative and experience to achieve the given objectives. Apart from providing officers to the Field Army, officers have always been found at senior government levels ranging from advisers to the Cabinet Office to senior positions in international military organizations. The arrival of the First 100 was significant in developing professional intelligence and security officers.
Key requirements remain keen and enquiring minds, which are perquisite for intelligencers anyway, excellent military skills and the ability and willingness to manage and learn from other ranks, many of whom have similar backgrounds in upbringing, education and academic qualifications. As officers began attending Staff College, the quality of the Corps developed, slowly at first. Throughout its existence, the Intelligence Corps has relied upon its other ranks to employ their knowledge of the Intelligence Cycle, expertise, professionalism and initiative, not infrequently onto
a clean page and not infrequently having to convince skeptical commanders holding contrary views based on opinion, as opposed to intelligence. There are few Corps in which a corporal is expected to give an intelligence briefing to a commander planning a military operation in which lives are at stake.
The Corps has an esprit de corps that other parts of the Armed Forces sometimes find difficult to understand and sometimes disrespectful to accepted military etiquette. This culture is perhaps reflected not only in the color of its beret but Brown’s Recess, which broke the tradition of not rising until the end of formal dinners by Intelligence Corps taking a break for no more than ten minutes; utterly sensible and hygienic. The success of the Intelligence Corps Association and www.greenslime has kept colleagues connected. For nearly twenty-five years, the Intelligence Corps was unable to collate and interpret its history and heritage, even though as early as 1943, members were recording their experiences. The early development of the Museum was typically unobtrusive but it took until the turn of the twenty-first century for a transferee to highlight the importance of heritage. In his Farewell Message as he handed over the Directorship to Brigadier Everson, Brigadier Chris Holtom, formerly Royal Tank Regiment, wrote in the 2001 The Rose and The Laurel:
The temperature of the Intelligence Corps Association is an indicator of the enduring ethos and the Museum fundamental to Corps history … we are fools if we do not listen and absorb the experiences of our seniors. They have done the Kosovo and Afghanistan thing before and little has changed …. ICA members know this and have much to tell. I commend the next generation to listen to the last and get involved with the Museum.
Sharing the Secret Page 47
