Lieutenant Colonel Usaf Cristin Stone

Air Force Intelligence Role in Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction: Maxwell Paper No. 39 Lieutenant Colonel Usaf Cristin Stone

Publisher Marketing: After the United States and coalition forces failed to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) stockpiled after Operation Iraqi Freedom, the president charged a congressional commission with examining US intelligence capabilities regarding WMD. No great surprise, the commission found that the intelligence community had been "dead wrong" in many of its prewar estimates. Air Force intelligence is part of that intelligence community and shares responsibility for that failure. Air Force intelligence professionals play important combating-WMD roles at combatant commands, components, national intelligence agencies, and in operational units. In this paper Lt Col Cristina M. Stone argues that the Air Force does not adequately prepare its intelligence analysts; targeteers; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operators; and unit-level and air and space operations center (AOC) personnel with the knowledge and expertise required to fill these positions. She examines the current status of the Air Force intelligence WMD expertise and proposes recommendations for improvement, utilizing Air Force intelligence-distinctive capabilities (predictive analysis, targeting, ISR operators, and unit-level and AOC operations) as a framework for discussion. To get to ground truth on the current status, the author conducted interviews with current and former WMD analysts and targeteers. Colonel Stone believes that in the areas of predictive analysis, targeting, and unit-level and AOC operations, Air Force intelligence training courses do not currently provide the requisite WMD expertise. The author recommends that the Air Force leverage its technical and scientific core and expert organizations across the government to improve training for intelligence personnel requiring WMD expertise. Regarding ISR operations, she proposes that the Air Force develop enhanced collection capabilities. This paper recommends changes to Air Force intelligence training, technical WMD expertise, collection capabilities, and marketing to improve the nation's ability to combat WMD. Contributor Bio:  Air University Press Walter Gary Sharp Sr. serves as a senior associate deputy general counsel for intelligence at the US Department of Defense, where he advises on legal issues related to intelligence, covert action, intelligence and counterintelligence policy, intelligence oversight, information security, information sharing, security classification policy, information operations, and computer network operations. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Sharp served as an associate deputy general counsel for international affairs at the Department of Defense; the director of legal research for international, comparative, and foreign law at the Law Library of Congress; the director of global and functional affairs within the Bureau of Legislative Affairs at the State Department; and a principal information security engineer at The MITRE Corporation. A veteran with 25 years of service, Dr. Sharp retired as a decorated US Marine Corps lieutenant colonel with prior enlisted service. His military assignments include commanding officer of a field artillery battery, senior prosecutor, deputy legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and international law adviser for the commanding general of the Unified Task Force in Somalia during Operation Restore Hope. Dr. Sharp's military decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, and his many awards for writing excellence and academic achievement include the Judge Advocate General's School Alumni Association Annual Professional Writing Award and an American Bar Association Award for Professional Merit. Dr. Sharp is the author of numerous articles and three books: UN Peace Operations (1995), CyberSpace and the Use of Force (1999), and Jus Paciarii (1999). He serves as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center where he currently teaches a counterterrorism course, The Law of 24. He has also taught graduate-level seminars on United Nations peace operations and international peace and security. He lectures internationally in universities and other diverse public forums on wide-ranging topics of international law and national security law, such as international peace and security, conflict management, and peacekeeping operations.