Slide 15 of 18
Notes:
I took this picture several years ago during Operation Guardian Assistance as we flew from Brazzaville to Libreville, Gabon. Since this conference focuses on the urban environment, I wanted to give my perspective on deficiencies our forces experienced while deployed in preparation for the evacuation of Kinshasa. Fortunately, the NEO/HUMRO mission never occurred. However, one month later, we turned around and redeployed back to Brazzaville to conduct a NEO as the Congo fell apart.
As the Senior Intelligence Officer for all joint forces in Gabon, we experienced several deficiencies which impacted our situational awareness. They included
no tactical reconnaissance assets available,
no intelligence link to for imagery or sigint for operational forces responsible for the prosecution of the mission,
no situational awareness on landing sites, extraction zones and location of presidential guard units other than days old HUMINT reporting
Kinshasa is one of those urban islands with a real water source surrounding it. Had we conducted the NEO, there were many unknowns which would have provided significant obstacles to overcome. In addition to execution forces being over 450 miles away, we had poor situational awareness within the city of the location of the Presidential Guard, locations of roadblocks, hazards erected at landing and extracting sites and inability to determine defenses around embassies, and other sites.
As in many similar urban missions, these same deficiencies continue to raise their ugly head. While commanders may know the information in the rear and in the intelligence SCIFs, the teams prosecuting the missions often times have no last minute feeds.
Although a UAV is not the answer in itself to the Urban conflict, when used in combined arms application, it has a promising future.
