July 4, 2004

A Peek Behind Closed Doors

"Flabbergasted" is the best word to describe my reaction to news that a 5th-grade Little League son of our close friends has grown up to become a high-level "teacher of spies" for the Defense Department.

We were as proud as his parents and sister when David A. Broadhurst, formerly of Rittman, Ohio, joined the U.S. Air Force intelligence department.

He had just been graduated from Bowling Green University with a Masters Degree in public administration.

David was sent to the Defense Department's school at Harvard University. Then he was graduated from the Defense Department War College and assigned a job that involved frequent, confidential reports to POTUS.

When that acronym is spelled out - President Of The United States - one can understand why David when questioned was reluctant to elaborate. " Nice day, isn't it."

Even his family never knew his exact duties. He wouldn't explain why he was awarded a Presidential Citation. All we knew was that he traveled to many different countries.  

 Now, the Free Lance-Star newspaper of Fredericksburg, Virginia, has published an exclusive story about David.

It is the first time that the Defense Department has allowed a peek behind the closed doors of its intelligence agency at Bethesda in the Washington D.C. area.  

Reporter Michael Zitz has written an insightful story reprinted here by permission of his editor, Ed Jones. There's no need to re-invent the wheel, though I have added additional pictures from official sources.

 * * *

SPY GAMES

High-tech spy agency has roots

In Fredericksburg area.

Agency helps soldiers see battlefield.

The future is not as glamorous as the past.

But it's smarter.

So, when North Stafford resident David A. Broadhurst teaches people to be spies, it's not the macho, cloak-and-dagger, shaken-not-stirred, martini-drinking, "James Bond" type.

No, Broadhurst, director of human development for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, grooms the 21st-century "Star Trek" geek-type of spook.

He shapes the futuristic agent who uses satellites, drones, pixels and computers - who plays war games and whose drink of choice is more along the lines of a Diet Coke.

Broadhurst's job is to "enhance" 5,000 NGA employees "from cradle to grave" by conducting 16,000 training and retraining sessions a year, mostly locally.

However, he sometimes sends people off to universities, such as Harvard, years after they finish the NGA College, 22-week training program.

The federal government doesn't mind paying for frequent retraining, considering the importance of intelligence in today's world.

"We've had to refocus our mission since Sept. 11," the 52-year-old Broadhurst said during a recent interview at the NGA's high-security facility in Bethesda.

He sees himself as being in the business of "human development" - a thread that runs through his family. His wife, Debbie, is a physical education teacher at Rock Hill Elementary. His eldest daughter, Kim, is a P.E. teacher and field hockey coach at North Stafford High School.

Broadhurst spent eight years as an officer in the Air Force, and his middle daughter, Stacy, followed him into that branch of the Military.

Son Seth is a pastor in Morgantown, W.Va. Youngest daughter Kelly is a senior at Colonial Forge High School.

"Our agency has a mission that relies on technology," Broadhurst said. He added that technology can only be as good as the people operating it and interpreting the data it produces.

This year, the NGA changed its name from National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Officially, it was because "geospatial intelligence" is more on the nose for its evolving mission.

It's the second name-change in a decade for the former Defense Mapping Agency. It used a combination of spy satellites and real James-Bond types dropped on the ground behind enemy lines.

They provided nearly 100 percent of the coordinates for the video-game war that was Operation Desert Storm.

It may seem ironic that an agency that traces its roots to the fabled explorers Lewis and Clark -- and to Fredericksburg's own Civil War-era oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury -- would be going through something of an identity crisis.

But then, change is the only way to stay relevant - especially in the intelligence business.

The NGA has facilities in Bethesda, Fort Belvoir and St. Louis. It has a primary mission of helping the military with targeting for such precision-guided munitions as Tomahawk cruise missiles and "smart" bombs.

Its mission also includes helping the military know what to expect as it moves into the battlefield -- whether it's in the open desert or an urban environment.

Members of the NGA traveled to Iraq with U.S. military personnel to help commanders "visualize" battles. The agency is developing virtual-reality technology that provides a "God's-eye-view" of a war.

Virtual reality is years from large-scale use. Today, three-dimensional high-resolution graphic representations of a target scene are used.

Analysts or military operators can rehearse their mission and experience the environment. They can "see" what it would look like if they were to walk, drive, fly or sail through the scene.

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the NGA developed 3-D animation from satellite images of Iraq so military personnel could virtually fly or drive through Baghdad in practice runs.

The NGA also looks at global trends, forecasts future threats, defines future needs in research, and develops technology initiatives based on analysis of trends.

Since Sept. 11, NGA has added homeland security to its purview. It must walk a tight rope between providing information necessary to protect America from terrorism without giving the appearance of domestic snooping.

The NGA won't officially confirm that it has helped search for human targets abroad that includes Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. However, there can be very little doubt that it has.

"Part of the challenge," Broadhurst said, "is that enemies are learning how to avoid detection by spy satellites, even though technology exists to take stunningly detailed pictures from orbit."

So, the game keeps evolving, with data coming from commercial and government satellites, and from commercial aircraft as well as government planes.

The NGA is currently working on adding improved sensors to the Predator-B drone to provide more revealing real-time surveillance of the battlefield.

Predator provides high-resolution video right now. But it has a very limited field of view that requires prior knowledge of where to look.

Global Hawk provides tremendous numbers of very high-quality snapshots over large areas. It's been compared to a vacuum cleaner gobbling up terrain.

Both planes are UAVs, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. They are controlled from remote locations and can fly for days with no pilot fatigue. If one is shot down, no life is lost.

The NGA is working on integrating more advanced sensors into these unmanned aircraft - planning to place laser imaging and interferometric radar imaging capabilities.  

This will provide accurate information needed for urban combat support. It also helps the NGA peer through the leaf canopy in forests to see what's on the ground.

"The live video feed from platforms like the Predator and the global Hawk are our next challenge," said David Burpee, the agency's director of public affairs.

"We want to move from reconnaissance -- a periodic look at something -- to surveillance which is a constant observation," Burpee said.

* * *

Well done, David. Now tell us more.

Author: Lindsey Williams

Illustrations

Photos provided

1 -- 4-col - plane - place ON TOP half head shot

2 - 4-col - half head - place BELOW number one  

Spy teacher David Broadhurst trains employees of the National Geospatial-Intelligence agency to interpret real-time high-resolution video flashed back by unmanned Predator spy planes.

Ooooooooo

Army Air Force Photo

3 - 3 col. aerial view

Predator video of Taliban village in Afghanistan

 Oooooooo

OPTIONAL

Photos provided

4, 5, 6  -- 2 columns each - GROUPED at bottom of page.

 Sub head  -- "Broadhurst's Purview"

4 - Pentagon

5 - White House

6 - War College

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