Task Force Odin Coming To Afghanistan War

Awesome news from Defense Secretary Gates when he told Congress just last week that he wants to bring the effective (once top secret) Task Force Odin to the War in Afghanistan. Gates was just in Iraq and was supposed to receive a briefing on Task Force Odin operations in Tikrit but a sandstorm preventing him from making that meeting. I blogged a number of months ago about what the Task Force Odin operation was in Iraq and what it entailed...and the Time article here does an excellent job of detailing just how Task Force Odin works...take a look:

Sandstorms prevented Gates' aircraft from stopping as planned at Camp Speicher, near the northern city of Tikrit, to receive a briefing on a once-secret program, known as Task Force Odin. The program has innovatively linked a variety of surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft — drones as well as manned planes — with new sensor technologies to hunt down insurgent cells. Those assets also are linked to attack helicopters and other planes capable of striking at discrete targets on short notice, day and night. One of the keys has been expanding the availability of full-motion video cameras aboard aircraft that can transmit live images to other aircraft and to ground stations, enabling quick action.
"We have a lot more plans under way" for expanding that program, Gates said.

Here's another piece of the article that alludes to Odin:

In the interview, Gates said he is focusing heavily now on expanding the use and effectiveness of intelligence and surveillance programs that have played an important part in eroding the insurgency in Iraq.

The roll out of Task Force Odin to Afghanistan and especially the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan (yes, I know what you're thinking....INSIDE of Pakistan too) would be incredible. The surveillance benefits of this system is unbelievable and has aided U.S. troops in tracking down some of the smallest al Qaeda cells in Iraq. Imagine the effects of Task Force Odin spying on hundreds and hundreds of Taliban jihadists scowering over and through the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

One of the features of Task Force Odin is the speed in which delivery of weapons to spotted targets can occur...it's all inter-linked...the surveillance and the attack pieces. Odin by the way stands for: Observe / Detect / Identify / Neutralize.

So Mr. Taliban, Task Force Odin is on its way, boy. Prepare to be observed while you go on your daily ambushes, get ready to be detected as the perpetrators of the ambush, you will be identified as the correct bad guys and you will see your sorry asses neutralized. Good riddance, scumbags.

Iraq: Gates on Narrower US Combat Role

(BAGHDAD) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday that although no additional U.S. combat brigades are to withdraw from Iraq this year, he expects the U.S. combat role to keep shrinking.

"We are clearly in a mission transition," he told reporters on an overnight flight here from Washington.
U.S. troops will increasingly play a backup role, Gates said, as Iraqi security forces take on more of the responsibility for fighting an insurgency that has lost much of its power and influence over the past year.
"The areas in which we are seriously engaged (in fighting) will, I think, continue to narrow," Gates said.
The No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, told reporters later at the main U.S. military headquarters outside Baghdad that he remains optimistic that the trend of improving security will continue. He said key measures of security have improved about 80 percent over one year ago; while "there is a degree of fragility" to the situation, he said, it is "somewhat less" fragile that just a few months ago.
The biggest uncertainty at the moment, Austin said, is the central government's inability thus far to pass the legislation needed to hold provincial elections across the country before the end of the year. Gates is meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki later Monday.
Austin also said the al-Qaeda organization in Iraq remains a source of concern.
"Al-Qaeda is in disarray but they have not yet been defeated," he said.
Iraq currently has primary responsibility for security in 11 of its 18 provinces. It regained responsibility for Anbar province, at one time the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency, a few weeks ago.
In the interview, Gates said he is focusing heavily now on expanding the use and effectiveness of intelligence and surveillance programs that have played an important part in eroding the insurgency in Iraq.
It is Gates' eighth trip to Iraq since becoming defense secretary in December 2006.
Sandstorms prevented Gates' aircraft from stopping as planned at Camp Speicher, near the northern city of Tikrit, to receive a briefing on a once-secret program, known as Task Force Odin. The program has innovatively linked a variety of surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft — drones as well as manned planes — with new sensor technologies to hunt down insurgent cells. Those assets also are linked to attack helicopters and other planes capable of striking at discrete targets on short notice, day and night. One of the keys has been expanding the availability of full-motion video cameras aboard aircraft that can transmit live images to other aircraft and to ground stations, enabling quick action.
"We have a lot more plans under way" for expanding that program, Gates said.
Gates told Congress last week that he wants to replicate Task Force Odin in Afghanistan as soon as possible.
In the in-flight interview, Gates offered high praise for Petraeus while also expressing confidence in Odierno.
"He's played a historic role," Gates said of Petraeus, who arrived in Baghdad as the top commander in February 2007 and implemented a revised counterinsurgency strategy, aided by the deployment of five additional Army brigades and other factors, that resulted in a drastic reduction in violence.
"Gen. Petraeus is clearly the hero of the hour," Gates said.