G-2 seeks to bring quick response capability, training into intel budget

June 4, 2012

By J.D. Leipold

WASHINGTON (June 4, 2012) -- The Army G-2 said the 35-year old intelligence corps was seeking to incorporate the quick response capabilities and training developed by industry into its programs of record and the base budget.

Lt. Gen. Mary A. Legere, the intelligence corps provides multidiscipline intelligence operations, as well as computer network operations to combatant commanders with its force of 15,000 Soldiers and civilians. The agency covers 108 locations in 30 countries.

Legere spoke May 31, with Association of the U.S. Army members at their monthly breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C.

"Those Soldiers around the world are really the foundation for the combatant commanders' daily read and they're totally engaged," said the former commanding general of Army Intelligence and Security Command, known as INSCOM. "They're responsible for making sure that anything our intelligence community does is available to that Soldier on Point. We don't expect that private in the squad that's heading out the door today to figure out how he gets intel."

Legere said the intel force was regionally focused on the Middle East but added that for the last 10 years an equal number of intelligence Soldiers are in places like Colombia, the Philippines and South Korea. She noted INSCOM had become "experts from space to mud" and it got there with assistance from the combat service agencies and the national agencies.

"But, we have to plug in and make sure they understand our needs, and then our job is to make sure there's nothing in the intelligence community that's not available to the joint force," she said.

"The Army is about to deliver a fused product because we're good at all disciplines," she said. "We're about finding individuals in crowds and determining whether they're friend or foe, and that requires speed, it requires understanding and a combination of intelligence disciplines."

In response to emerging threats, the Army has been building out the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade. That is a 1,200-strong Soldier "cyber force" which provides defensive capabilities, while also offering offensive options.

"We're also reinforcing our internal boundaries, that threat which might exist within our formation," Legere said, citing the information leak to Wikileaks as an example. "We're working very hard to make sure we apply technology, training, and the right force to ensure we secure ourselves against that one percent.

"At the end of the day, first and foremost, we're about enabling decisions, preventing surprise, providing options, explaining the situation and allowing our commanders to make the right decisions and shape the right results," Legere said.