Associative Memory Technology:
The Potential Effect on Intelligence in Support of Special Operations
against the Taliban in Afghanistan -
An interview with BGen (USA, Ret) Mark V. Phelan
Brigadier General Mark V. Phelan retired from the United States Army
after 30 years of commendable service; 28 of them as a special operations
commander in Western Africa and Southwest Asia. He most recently led
combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, where his mission was uncovering
and eliminating terrorist networks. Before entering the military he
graduated from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts with
a degree in Criminal Justice in 1977. In 1998 he was granted a Masters
Degree in Strategy and Policy from the Naval War College.
He recently joined North Carolina-based Saffron Technology, Inc.,
bringing his extensive “boots-on-the-ground” experience to bear
on one of their target markets: Federal agencies, military and civilian, fighting
the war on terror. He sat down with us recently for an extensive interview
on his experience Afghanistan.
Toby Younis: What can you tell us about your experience in Afghanistan?
Mark Phelan: As a colonel I commanded the 3rd Special Forces Group and set up the first Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in Bagram, Afghanistan in January 2002. Our mission was capture or kill the Taliban and deny them the freedom of movement. The first couple of months we were in country, we stumbled around a bit looking for the bad guys, wondering where they were going, what they were doing, where they were hiding and planning, and what we should be doing and where we should be going. We didn’t get a lot of good intelligence from the Afghani people. In past regimes there were executions of those that had provided information, so they weren’t very forth-coming. It took us awhile to figure out what was going on.
Paktika province was especially problematic. It sits right on the Pakistani border and on the historical ingress and egress routes through the passes over the mountains that separate the two countries. We referred to books the Soviets had written as a result of their experience in Afghanistan, with descriptions of passes, like Khyber, that were traditionally used to traffic between the two countries. The Soviet books included sketches that described specific passes and caves. Their drawings were very accurate. We concentrated on those passes, putting up safe houses and running recon. We ran ops in the Bharmal Valley down in Paktika Province, right across from Waziristan – right around Wana and Quetta, in Pakistan. We knew where the refugee camps were, and that's where the populations were moving. And, we knew the bad guys were mixed in with the movements of the refugees…
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