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| Axis of Evil |
| Qatar exercise won't involve combat troops... |
| 2002-12-08 |
| It doesn't involve combat troops because it's a command post exercise, or more likely a communications exercise... Britain, Qatar and the United States launch an unprecedented exercise next week meant to test the effectiveness of a forward-deployed command station in the Persian Gulf that would maintain seamless connectivity with the headquarters of U.S. Central Command. To commanders and their staffs, this sort of exercise can be indistinguishable from the real thing. They get to compile and issue the orders to deploy troops, coordinate their operations, supply them, relieve them in place or withdraw them, suffer casualties, and have all sorts of things go wrong. U.S. officials said this is the first time that the command will conduct its week-long Internal Look exercise in the Gulf region. Previous exercises — meant to simulate battle scenarios directed by a deployable command headquarters — were held in the United States in 1990, 1996 and 2000. The main difference between this one and those is that they're on site now. The map sets they're using will be the same, the comms gear will be the same... Internal Look will begin on Monday in Qatar's Al Sayliyah base and will be comprised of 1,000 U.S. military personnel led by Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks. They will represent the air, naval, marine and special operation elements of Central Command in what was termed as a non-combat exercise. The exercise will include a range of scenarios that deal with any war against Iraq, officials said. They'll probably run one or two field training exercises, which is the same thing but with a limited number of troops, before running the actual operation. This is practice, hopefully making perfect... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 Of course in the newspaper business you would never expect the editor and publisher to know what their jobs are and the best way to communicate with each other how to handle the news on any given day or what the editorial policy should be or how to deal with stories or ledes raised by the reporters in the field. Why should a journalist think any different about the military? |
| Posted by: Jack 2002-12-09 09:52:30 |