The following quotations are taken veratim from a report, "Intelligence for Low Intensity Conflicts: U.S. Problems and Options" by Robert C. Kingston. It was presented in Washington on 30 October 1991 and published in National Security: Papers Prepared for GAO Conference on Worldwide Threats, U.S. General Accounting Office, April 1992 (GAO/NSIAD-92-104S).

Biographic summaries are the basis of successful operations to unseat or sidetrack key personnel who plan and implement insurgencies, coups, transnational terrorism, and drug smuggling activities that adversely affect U.S. interests. Motivations, habit patterns, friends, other important contacts, tactics, strengths, and weaknesses are particularly important. So are locations, movement, and personal security measures....

Successful counterinsurgents must possess accurate intelligence regarding the organization, strength, location, disposition, movement, morale, weapons, and equipment of the guerrilla bands, undergrounds, subversive groups, and paramilitary forces they oppose. Training bases, sanctuaries, and the source/type/extent of external support are among many related elements....

Antiterrorists/counterterrorists cannot create reliable political-economic-social-geographic-ideological-religious threat indication lists without sound intelligence concerning the sources, composition, and support of specific terrorist groups....

U.S. leaders cannot knowledgeably support or oppose any foreign coup that affects U.S. interests unless they are well informed about potential successors, especially their attitudes toward the United States and expected programs compared with those of incumbents. Otherwise, short-term benefits may become long-term liabilities with local, regional, and even global implications....

Strategic sabotage, a favorite technique of resistance movements, depends on intelligence to verify the value of targets, together with defenses and vulnerabilities and points of entrance and egress. Skilled saboteurs must also know which targets to spare because destruction or prolonged disruption would put too many sympathizers out of work, deprive them of public utilities, or otherwise impair a previously popular cause....

Psychological operations wield words as nonviolent weapon systems, set stages, exploit successes, and minimize failures when properly employed. Ill-informed psychological operation, however, can boomerang. Specialists must therefore gather detailed intelligence that enables them to determine the predispositions, vulnerabilities, and susceptibilities of targeted audiences and must then tailor themes and pick the best dissemination mode....

Individuals directed to establish evasion and escape networks in enemy territory rely on intelligence to identify trustworthy safe areas and "locals" who can furnish safehouses, sustenance, transportation, medical assistance, and useful documents, such as forged identity papers, travel permits, passports, and ration cards. Evasion and escape architects also need intimate knowledge of local restrictions and security programs....

Specialized conflict termination terms, such as those that accompanied the April 11, 1991, cease-fire between U.N. forces and Iraq, cannot be enforced effectively unless imperative intelligence is available....

U.S. General Accounting Office, April 1992 (GAO/NSIAD-92-104S).