Military intelligence is not a contradiction in terms

It's a necessity in an operational theatre, as the CF well recognize:

The Canadian military has established a special intelligence unit to do spy work on overseas missions, in places like Afghanistan, CBC News has learned.

CBC obtained documents that show the Canadian Forces is spending about $27 million over the next three years to purchase equipment for the new unit, which is actively recruiting soldiers.

Many details about the unit are considered classified, and not being released to the public, but the documents show that members analyze information gathered by other soldiers in the field, such as the information soldiers might pick up while interviewing motorists and searching cars at roadside checkpoints.

The intelligence unit can also be tasked with recruiting and overseeing local intelligence agents who are already operating in a country.

The focus is to gather intelligence about the operational side of a mission, such as hunting for Taliban bomb makers in Afghanistan. Bigger intelligence questions, such the global manhunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, won't be handled by the unit.

It's not clear what countries the unit is currently operating in.

NDP Defence critic Dawn Black said more information needs to be made public.

"We don't know, and that leaves it open to all kinds of questions," she said. "Because we don't know, that raises all kinds of red flags."

By the way, the CF have been doing overt (and, I suspect using recruited agents to do rather more) HUMINT for some time with appropriately trained personnel; see the Canadian Forces' general message at the Update here.

Update: Plus a topic thread at Milnet.ca. And commenters gone wild at the CBC, close to 300.