Joint focus sought in personnel recovery: Pentagon urges service leaders to combine rescue, intelligence efforts.

A heightened pace of military operations and the nature of the threats confronting U.S. troops call for improvements in personnel rescue techniques and equipment, said officials.

Although each service has specially-trained personnel recovery forces, the Pentagon is pushing for joint tactics and procedures. A new multi-service computer program to manage personnel recovery missions, for example, is now in use, and a new Defense Intelligence Agency analytic cell has been established to work cooperatively on personnel recovery issues.

"Personnel recovery is critical to our nation and to our forces. It also denies the enemy a key source of intelligence," said Air Force Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart, director of operations for the U.S. Central Command, which has responsibility for the war in Afghanistan.

He spoke at a conference sponsored by the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Office (DPMO) and the National Defense Industrial Association.

In the Afghan conflict, the United States Central Command has conducted the highest number of rescues since the Vietnam War. More than 170 individuals have been rescued so far, said Renuart.

CENTCOM combines the services' capabilities with various other joint capabilities, to assist in what is "an uncertain operational environment with a low- to medium-threat risk," he said. Elements from all sectors of the military have been employed, such as search and rescue (SAR), combat search and rescue (CSAR), joint combat search and rescue (JCSAR), and non-conventional assisted recovery (NAR).

Renuart cited the challenges posed by the Afghan terrain, which is extremely mountainous--49 percent of it is 2,000 kilometers above sea level. Helicopters often lose their effectiveness at that altitude, he said, which can impede operations. Climate factors also have made certain recoveries difficult. "It was an extremely cold winter with little rainfall," he explained.

A successful personnel recovery last November occurred when an MH-53 helicopter was forced to conduct a hard emergency landing. "An 11-man crew was isolated behind enemy lines," he said. Using near real-time notification, recovery forces took action in a dangerous terrain at a 3,000-meter elevation. "It took three hours, but joint recovery forces recovered all personnel," he said. "In earlier times, this would have taken many hours or days," he said.

There were four serious injuries and cases of hypothermia. The aircraft was unrecoverable, but troops managed to destroy the aircraft so that it could not be used by enemy forces to gather intelligence or for any other purpose.

Intelligence Improvements

The Defense Intelligence Agency, in September 2001, launched a prisoner of war/missing-in-action analytic cell to improve the intelligence involved in soldier rescue. The move "represents a new direction in the intelligence community's support to the warfighter, the policy maker and the joint staff," said Tom Brown, of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The cell provides "direct intelligence support [to help recover] isolated captured or missing personnel," he said.

Brown said the cell was established because of shortfalls in coordination between the national intelligence community, the operators and the soldiers on the ground.

The mission of the analytic cell is to establish and maintain an interagency, joint capability to support activities relative to prisoners of war and missing personnel, as well as provide baseline assessments. One goal is to establish a "crisis surge capability," Brown said.

The cell is "up and running," and has been working in direct support of Operation Enduring Freedom and the war on terrorism, said Brown.

The POW/MIA analytic cell has been preparing studies on potential adversaries, Brown reported. "We get there by predictive analysis," he said. The cell identified four basic scenarios that characterize personnel recovery missions. So fur, it has developed approaches to the following situations:

* Combat search and rescue/missing in action

* Prisoner of war/captive

* Hostage

* Prisoner of war/hostage

The cell is composed of representatives from various U.S. intelligence agencies.

The leadership of the analytic cell resides within the regional assessments group, of the directorate for analysis and production, of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The Institute for Defense Analyses, a think-tank in Alexandria, Va., recently published a new installment of a report outlining the challenges of personnel recovery in coalition operations. According to retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Devol Brett, the study assessed the ability of allied and coalition forces to recover U.S. personnel stranded in enemy territory. It rook into account some lessons learned during Operation Allied Force in 1999.

Language barriers don't cause significant problems in personnel recovery operations, he said. Since English is the international language of aviation, in a recent international personnel recovery exercise in Central Europe, "most of the young officers spoke good English," Brett said.

However, military terminology and acronyms do generate barriers to communication, he said. There is also a fear that "under the stress of a survival or evasion situation, survivors may revert to their native language." The IDA report recommended that rescue forces have the option to bring in linguists for radio communications.

Brett noted that the study found shortfalls in personnel recovery readiness, especially in relation to international training practices. "There is a training gap between U.S. and partner nations' personnel recovery forces," he said. In addition to a "training gap," the "interoperability pileup is really a major problem," he said.

Some issues, he said, "go beyond the personnel recovery community." There is a reluctance by nations to share and release classified information, and withholding information fosters an environment of distrust, Brett said. "Our coalition interoperability problems mirror our joint and interagency interoperability problems," he said.

The study also found that rescue units in the field lack the manpower to create and sustain viable personnel recovery programs, and that there is little continuity between regions of the world. "Theaters need to address all areas and develop a viable personnel recovery umbrella," Brett said.

Brett said that the U.S. does not currently depend on other nations for personnel recovery, because "the strategic impact is too great."

Services' Rescue Assets

The Army does not have a dedicated force for personnel recovery, but Special Forces, special operations aviation units and specialized ground forces can be deployed at a moment's notice for personnel recovery operations, said Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army's director of operations, readiness and mobilization.

"The truck driver is as likely to be isolated as the scout," he warned, making it necessary for the Army to have forces ready who are knowledgeable about and aware of their surroundings. "A lack of situational awareness can be costly to recovery forces," he said.

Chiarelli said that the Army plans to enhance its organic capabilities to conduct security, fire support and extraction for personnel recovery missions.

The Air Force has a strategic plan for personnel recovery, said Maj. Gen. Mark Schmidt, assistant deputy chief of staff for air and space operations.

At least two-thirds of the Air Force personnel recovery units are in the reserve component, he said. Over the past year, the Air Force has been increasing its rescue force equipment. A Portland, Ore., reserve rescue unit will soon move to the active force, he said.

That unit has five HC-130 aircraft and eight HH-60 helicopters, he said. The Air Force plans to buy a new medium-lift helicopter during the next decade, Schmidt said. The goal is to "reduce the reaction time and be more survivable," he said. Frontrunners competing for the CSAR helicopter contract are the Sikorsky's S-92, EH Industries/Lockheed's US-101, Sikorsky's H-60x, Bell-Boeing's CV-22 and Sikorsky's CH-53.

Air Force leaders announced recently that the 'Combat Rescue Officer' is an approved career field. "We hope to have a fully manned specialty by fiscal year 2007," said Schmidt.

The Navy's policy on personnel recovery is part of a broad initiative called Sea Strike. Sea Strike is part of an "organic, robust, responsive, joint-capable, scalable-networked sea-based force that can be task organized for missions including personnel recovery," said Rear Adm. Joseph Krol, deputy chief of naval operations for plans, policy and operations.

Personnel recovery needs also were considered in the initial design of the Navy's MH-60, a new armed multi-mission helicopter that will be compatible with the next-generation combat survivor evader locator (CSEL) radio, now in development, Krol said.

The Navy's future small surface-combatant vessel, the littoral combat ship, will operate near the coast, which can potentially enhance the Navy's role in personnel recovery operations, he said.

The Marine Corps focuses significant resources on rescue and recovery operations, said Maj. Gen. Kevin Kuklok, assistant deputy commandant for plans, policy and operations. Kuklok said the Marine Corps personnel recovery approach involves "speed and access, flexibility and momentum." The Marine Air Ground Task Force operates a TRAP unit, or Tactical Recovery of Aircraft Personnel. "The key to success is in detailed planning," he said. TRAP complements "the Marine Corps' other CSAR capabilities," he said.

RELATED ARTICLE: Pentagon Introduces Civilian Code of Conduct

The Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Office (DPMO) is launching a new policy for Defense Department civilians and contractors who are at risk of capture.

The military services will soon begin training military contractors in the "civilian code of conduct;" so they will know what to do if they become prisoners of war, said Air Force Maj. Robin Athey, of DPMO. Training civilians is "now a Defense Department requirement," and DPMO is "working to get the policy into use on the street," he said.

"In the current climate, everything is being contracted out at the Defense Department," Athey explained. "As we are getting more civilians in theater, the need is becoming more apparent" to train Defense Department civilians in tactics and techniques for evading capture or to survive prisoner-of-war conditions, he said.

Though civilians are listed as non-combatants under the rules of the Geneva Convention, DPMO is asking combatant commanders to identify those who should be trained-mainly civilians who are at high risk of capture. DPMO wants to "identify those with a higher propensity of knowledge and determine whether they have a low, medium or high risk of capture," said Athey.

Those with a low risk of capture will be trained in the laws of armed conflict and informed of legal issues related to capture. Those with a medium risk of capture will be provided with resistance training. "Those at high risk of capture would receive POW training. They would be taken to school to teach them the skills," Athey said.

DPMO officials estimated that the training will begin within a year. "However, funding still has to be identified for the training from within the services, Athey said.

Elizabeth G. Book