Intelligence Support to Operation Anaconda Research Paper

Intelligence Support to Operation Anaconda - Research Paper Example These were remnants of earlier offensives by the US about three months earlier who were seen gathering around this valley. The battle spanned the period between 2nd march to 17th March 2002 and it included the combined forces of the US military, Canadian forces, New Zealand, friendly Afghan soldiers, Danish, Germany, Norway, as well as the Australian military forces against the Taliban and the al-Qaeda forces. The US forces, under the command of General Franklin Hagenbeck, managed to get out of this battle as winners after managing to drive the enemy out of the valley with heavy death tolls to measure up their success. The win was however not a smooth sail as can be suggested from the fact that though the war was planned to end after three days, it took seven days to conquer the Taliban and al-Qaeda opposing forces. The US had to exercise heavy combat against their enemies to force them into admitting defeat- a development that was never expected. At the same time, the US suffered a total of 80 casualties where 8 died while the other 72 were wounded to differing degrees. The following essay will undertake to assess both the right and the improvement seeking steps that were taken by the intelligence supporting Operation Anaconda. The US forces did not have sufficient knowledge of neither the number of the opposing Taliban and al-Qaeda forces nor their weaponry. This meant that the US forces planning the assault failed to include the accurate information in their plan- a move that rendered their making wrong moves during the execution of the offensive. Most of the information that was relayed to the US forces was through overheard reconnaissance, human intelligence as well as communications captures that never offered the accurate information, resulting into misleading perceptions. The number of the opposing Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, for example, actually amounted to approximately between 700-1000 men. From the