Posted on 05/29/2009 4:52:16 PM PDT by SandRat
MOSUL — Iraqi Police gathered with their counterparts from the Iraqi National Police and Iraqi Army at the 3rd Iraqi Police Division’s new operations center for a situational update briefing on the morning of May 26.
The IP realized they could leverage significant operational gains with their own operations center to conduct mission planning and tracking, while working with key personnel from the Iraqi Army and Iraqi National Police.
"[The Iraqi Police] recognize that they need to work together with the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi National Police. To do that, they needed a functional operations center from which they could conduct operations," said Sgt. 1st Class Gene Harding, intelligence team leader for the 3rd IP Div. National Police Transition Team.
The operations center is outfitted with work areas for liaisons from the Iraqi Army and Iraqi National Police as well as personnel for key functional areas such as intelligence and communications. This has given Iraqi Security Forces a unified front for security in Mosul.
"Now that they have a place where they can come together, they are coming together," said Harding. “They are able to plan and coordinate with each other because they are all right there together.”
Since the center began full-scale operations on May 20, mission coordination has reaped rewards for the ISF. According to Harding, in the last week one mission resulted in the capture of a suspected insurgent and another uncovered a large weapons cache.
The IP’s designed, coordinated key pieces, and built the operations center to their specifications.
"They've taken ownership of this since inception. This is 100 percent their operations center,” said Harding. “They took ideas from one of our operations centers and made it their own."
Lateaf stated that the operations center will become pivotal for the Iraqi Security Forces as Coalition forces reposition in accordance with the security agreement. Now that he has a base of operations, Lateaf is continually looking for ways to improve the operations center and the resources it provides.
“[The operations center] is not perfect yet, but we are developing it every day,” said Lateaf. “Each day we will continue to improve on our operations and be more successful. This is just the beginning.”
(Multi-National Division – North)
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