Military Intelligence --this week in history. 7 January 1991

With the outbreak of the first Gulf War, the Army realized it had a shortage

of US Soldiers proficient in Arabic. The Kuwaiti government, therefore,

agreed to provide 300 volunteers to support the US military efforts in

Operation DESERT SHIELD. These volunteers, who were college students

attending school in the United States, were selected by the Kuwaiti

government and enlisted in the Kuwaiti Army. The students already spoke

fluent English as well as the Iraqi dialect of Arabic, and had an

understanding of American customs and traditions, which eased their

adjustment to serving with the American Army. They were to report to the US

Army for training, equipping, and subsequent deployment to Saudi Arabia,

where they were attached to US units, by 15 January 1991. All associated

costs, including transport to the Middle East, were covered by the Kuwaiti

government.

The Intelligence School had to find a quick training solution. The US Army

Intelligence School Devens (USAISD) created a Training Task Force to support

the training of the new Kuwaiti Soldiers as assistant voice interceptors,

processors, and reporters at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and Fort Devens,

Massachusetts. The abbreviated training ran from January 7 to February 6

and was designed as an intensive Combat Intelligence Training Course (CITC).

Operation DESERT OWL, as the project was named, was designed to prepare

Kuwaiti civilians to work with US intelligence personnel and provide

linguistic support. Units supporting this CITC were the 306th MI Bn

(Devens), 3/26 Inf Bn, (Goodfellow AFB), 3d BCT Bde (Dix), 902nd MI Gp

(Dix), 344th MI Bn (Goodfellow), 704th MI Bde (Meade), and the Defense

Language Institute, Foreign Language Center (Monterey, CA). The task force

trained 287 Kuwaitis who subsequently deployed from McGuire AFB to SWA in

support of Desert Shield.

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