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IRAQ - Mission: Assist the ISF, through mentoring and advising and supporting continued development of a National C2 system in order to contribute to the development of a self, sufficient, sustainable and effective ISF
So what does that really mean? What do we really do?
Well, there are 3 separate teams within SSAMD that work, advise and mentor the senior staff in the Prime Ministers National Operations Centre, the MoD Joint Operations Centre and the MoI National Command Centre. We are an eclectic mix of nations with our team made up of Romanian, Hungarian, Polish, UK, Dutch and Danish as well as Ukrainians within the PfP mission.
Historically, SSAMD has provided training and mentoring throughout its 5 year mission. However, the achievement of Full Operational Capability in Jul 09 and subsequent support provided by the Ops Centre’s to the Government of Iraq Elections in Mar 10 necessitated a redirection in the support provided by NATO.
The bottom line was that the individual Ops Centres had made significant improvements in many areas. They had established organisational structure and developed operational procedures and processes that encouraged and engendered progress outwith the direction provided by NATO and thus were displaying the desire for greater autonomy and higher level of Iraqi responsibility.
As a result of these successes, the Ops Centre’s had achieved sustaining capability and were well on the road to a self-sustaining capability. To ensure that we kept the Iraqis on that Road, SSAMD transitioned to advising and mentoring, taking more of a back seat role with less driving and more time spent as a passenger.
To assist us, the SSAMD SUPPLAN was developed and highlighted those areas (Training, C2, Information Networks and Crisis Management (for the PM NOC only), that required action to achieve the final endstate and enable the declaration of SSC:
Endstate: A self-sustaining training process that produces functioning and adaptive National Operations Centre’s with structures that meet the present and future security challenges.
As we address each of the SUPPLAN areas in turn, SSAMD has less and less involvement, and thus, less interaction with the day-to-day running of the Ops Centre’s.
As the 80/20 rule becomes effective, SSAMD has completed what it can in line with direction and tasking. It is time we stopped the car on the Road to SSC because we have reached the SSAMD final destination.
That’s not to say that the Iraqis don’t have work to do – they do, there is always room for improvement. The leadership in each of the Ops Centre’s is fully aware of their responsibilities and, without exception know where and what they must do to ensure the momentum and continued development of Operational Capability.
The Iraqi Ops Centre’s have all the tools they need to support an Iraqi run, Iraqi led security organisation – as SSAMD gets out of the vehicle, we leave the car running with the keys in the ignition and let the Iraqis drive on down the road.
| Date Taken: | 09.13.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 10.07.2010 07:34 |
| Story ID: | 57658 |
| Location: | IQ |
| Web Views: | 26 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Strategic Security Advisory and Mentoring Division (SSAMD), by Capt. Jennifer Hunnicutt, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
