... The exercise tests command and control for U.S. Central
Command. ...

... There have been hiccups, which is why the military is
exercising the system. The setup consumes "an awful lot of
bandwidth," said a Central Command official. "Sometimes the
computer network goes down, but it has gotten better as
we've become more familiar with it." ...


-----Original Message-----
From: DEFENSE PRESS SERVICE LIST 
On Behalf Of Press Service
Sent: 12 December 2002 16:00
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Transformation on Display in Qatar

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

DOHA, Qatar, Dec. 12, 2002 -- It was U.S. military
transformation in the flesh at the As Saliyah pre-
positioning camp here Dec. 12.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited U.S. service
members participating in Exercise Internal Look, being held
at this compound outside Qatar's capital city.

Around 1,200 service members are participating in the
computer-generated exercise. The scenario is classified,
but it is realistic for the command, said senior Central
Command officials.

The exercise tests command and control for U.S. Central
Command. The command's headquarters is at MacDill Air Force
Base, Fla. A senior Central Command official said it is a
15-hour flight -- with two refuelings -- for the combatant
commander to get into the area of operations.

The command needed a deployable command post so the
combatant commander could still oversee all aspects of
Central Command's mission and be in theater. Internal Look
is testing that command post.

The deployable headquarters consists of more than 20
structures set up in storage warehouses for equipment now
being used in Kuwait. A mixture of tents and CONEX boxes,
the headquarters is tied together with thousands of feet of
fiber-optic cable.

Officials said that anything they can do at MacDill they
can do here.

The headquarters is an outgrowth of a proposal in the
Quadrennial Defense Review. That document called for a
deployable joint task force headquarters. Since that
document in 2001, technology has allowed a grander design.

On the logistics side, for example, officials can find
exactly where anything destined for the command is at any
time. It allows planners to take the commander's orders and
"promulgates" them over Central Command's entire 25-nation
area of operations. Raytheon designed and built the system
in St. Petersburg, Fla. It arrived in Qatar in October.

"In many ways, this is better than MacDill," said Army Lt.
Col. John Latulip, a member of the J-4 logistics staff.
"All this equipment is less than six months old."

There have been hiccups, which is why the military is
exercising the system. The setup consumes "an awful lot of
bandwidth," said a Central Command official. "Sometimes the
computer network goes down, but it has gotten better as
we've become more familiar with it."

The tasks personnel in the deployed group do may have to be
tweaked, said a senior command official, but the overall
number seems about right.

British forces are participating in the exercise. The
deployable headquarters can expand to accommodate allies,
officials said. Also, a U.S. Joint Forces Command team is
present to take lessons learned back to Norfolk, Va., for
the next-generation headquarters and to dispense these
lessons to the other combatant commands.

Once the exercise is over on Dec. 17, the headquarters will
stay in Qatar. Senior command officials did not know how
many people would be assigned to the facility.

The defense secretary told troops that the 21st century is
a different time for the world. "It is a distinctly
different security environment," he said. "Our Department
of Defense, our country, is in the process of transforming
itself to fit those new threats and new capabilities that
exist in the world."

The deployable headquarters is another step in the road,
officials said.

_______________________________________________________
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====================================================

Visit the Defense Department's Web site for the latest news
and information about America's response to the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks and the war against terrorism: "Defend America"
at http://www.DefendAmerica.mil.

====================================================
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at http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/homeland/ to learn more
about the Department of Defense role in homeland security.

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