Sheila Vemmer / Defense News Media Group David Tillotson III is Deputy Chief of Warfighting Integration, and Deputy Chief Information Officer, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.

Intelligence on cruise missiles and improvised explosive devices must be aggressively distributed to the lowest tactical level, the Air Force’s number two information-technology official said April 28.

“[Air operations centers] are nice. But you know what? They ain’t the guys at risk,” David Tillotson III said during the 2006 Cruise Missile & IED Defense Conference: Joint Engagement of Time-Critical Air & Ground Targets, sponsored by the Defense News Media Group, in Arlington, Va..

Tillotson is the Air Force’s deputy chief of warfighting integration and its deputy chief information officer.

Among the tools to distribute that intelligence are fighters used as sensor platforms; improved real-time communications between the E-8 Joint STARS surveillance aircraft; and “Rover,” a system that feeds real-time video from Predator unmanned aerial vehicles to units on the ground.

“We are basically taking a ‘no idea is too silly’ approach to providing that direct support,” Tillotson said.

Tillotson told the conference that providing intelligence information has become more complicated as combat has transformed from the Cold War, industrial-age model of linear battle lines to situations such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where troops find themselves surrounded by people who may be friendly forces, innocent civilians or dangerous insurgents.

“If it’s over there,” he said, “it may or may not be [friendly], it may or may not be bad, it may or may not be somebody I would prefer not to make a mistake about,” he said. “The time to react if you’re walking a patrol through the streets of Balad is really short.”

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