Good Information

By Sebastian Sprenger / December 12, 2008 at 5:00 AM

The Army's Human Terrain Team program, which has repeatedly come under fire since its creation, is getting a shout-out from a counterinsurgency officer in Afghanistan. Army Col. John Agoglia, director of the Kabul-based Counterinsurgency Training Center-Afghanistan, told us in an interview last week he plans to soon integrate the teams' research into his organization's training curriculum.

Agoglia said he hasn't personally worked with any HTT personnel. But, he added, "the brigade commanders I've talked to felt they're getting very good information from them."

Under the HTT program, anthropologists deploy alongside U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to facilitate troops' interactions with the local population.

But before CTC-A trainers can tap into the information gathered by HTT teams, officials must build the requisite information sharing infrastructure, including ways of exchanging secret information, Agoglia said.

"We need to get our pipes set up and we need to get our information sharing capabilities improved," the colonel said. "And then we'll start looking at what they have and start pulling them into the training we're doing at the center."

Wired magazine's Danger Room blog has chronicled some of the issues surrounding the HTT program here, here, and here.

A Human Terrain Team handbook, issued by the Army's Training and Doctrine Command in September, is posted here.

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