This is a good explanation of it.

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The “collaborative warfare” that allowed the military and intelligence agencies to “locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias,” isn’t a secret and it certainly isn’t new.

Despite claims by the Washington Post that these techniques “have not been reported publicly,” many - if not more than Woodward realizes - been written about in technology stories by publications like Aviation Week & Space Technology dating back to 1991’s Operation Desert Storm and even before as they were designed, tested, blended and fielded.

Some of these innovative programs covered in AW&ST include:

1. L-3 Communications Network Centric Collaborative Targeting (NCCT) system that instantaneously links the intelligence take from several aircraft, ships or UAVs at once to locate, identify and target electronic emissions, including communications, and associate them with air, ground and sea radar targets. The system has been widely tested during exercises in the U.S. and has been deployed in Iraq for at least two years.

2. Coordination of information through Non-Traditional Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (NTISR) means. NTISR uses the sensor data from fighters and strike aircraft and insures it is immediately made available to soldiers on the ground who are making house to house searches and raids for insurgents. The U.S. Air Force has been working on the technique for at least a decade.

3. Real-time intelligence gathering and targeting such as through Northrop Grumman’s E-8 Joint Stars has always been a key factor. A program called Eagle Focus has in the last two years developed specialized software programs that brought together data to correlate with “change detection” information. As the JSTARS flew past areas day after day, it would record what had appeared - and what has disappeared - from areas of interest.

4. And another key piece of technology for all of this data linking was the IDM communications module. It was used to link the RC-135 Rivet Joint signals and communications intelligence gathering aircraft with the JSTARs so signals could be associated with objects such as locating the SUV with the Al Qaeda leadership inside. IDM was also extended to AWACS and fighter aircraft that could act on the real-time information.

5. New Boeing F/A-18Fs with dual-helmet-mounted sights used in the forward air control and close air support mission. The weapon systems officer need only look at a target to slew the infrared sensor onto it. It promptly geo-locates the targets based on the aircraft position and laser ranging. Using Rover data links, the air controller on the ground can confirm the target and coordinates are transmitted machine-to-machine of a bomb-carrying Super Hornet and into its Joint Direct Attack Munitions for immediate precision attack.

6. And finally, a stunning set of technologies was developed in the “Suter” series of programs. This intertwined the EC-130 Compass Call electronic attack aircraft with the Rivet Joint. As the Compass Call fired data-beams filled with specialized algorithms into enemy communications antennas (often associated with enemy command and control), the Rivet Joints sensors could tell the effect it was having on the enemy networks. That expanded the long-time skill of intel intercept to include network attack and network exploitation. Moreover, the sensors are so sensitive that they can pick up the low-power emissions of handheld cell phones.


The list of innovations since Desert Storm goes on and on, but with the elimination of military specialists from many news staff, the ability to follow the technology has opened some gaps in understanding and awareness.

But we agree with Woodward giving credit to “operations incorporating some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the U.S. government” as more important than the 2007 troop surge in curbing violence in Iraq.


Special operations leader Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal gave the world a huge clue when he is quoted as say it was “collaborative warfare,” which used “every tool available simultaneously, from signals intercepts to human intelligence and other methods that allowed lightning-quick and sometimes concurrent operations.”