DECEPTION

Now acknowledged as an essential part of military and associated operations, deception is as old as the Trojan Horse and ranges from simple expedients to highly complex, integrated schemes. Deception can best succeed when comprehensive measures are taken to coordinate all the conventional sources of intelligence, including open sources such as independent news reporting, signals intelligence, diplomatic reporting, aerial reconnaissance, and agent observation. When all five components can either be controlled or monitored, an adversary’s ability to verify intelligence is diminished  to the point where deception may play a significant part in the success of a particular undertaking. During World War II some highly imaginative schemes were developed to mislead the enemy, including MINCEMEAT, intended to suggest that the Allies would invade  Sardinia in 1943;  COPPERHEAD, to convey the impression that Gen. Bernard Montgomery had been in Gibraltar in 1944; and  FORTITUDE, which successfully diverted attention away from Normandy as the focus of the Allied D-Day landings. More recently, Saddam Hussein in 1991 was the victim of a cover plan that implied his occupation forces in Kuwait would be attacked from the sea.