Firefighter Ali Hassan Achmet makes a PowerPoint report Sunday in the Emergency Operations Center for Baghdad’s Rusafa district about an accidental electrocution from the night before. EOC employees like Achmet use such reports to inform Iraqi security forces commanders about what’s happening around Rusafa. (James Warden / Stars and Stripes)
BAGHDAD — What can $10,000 buy? A whole lot of security and cooperation if you’re in Iraq.
That’s what the 3rd Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment discovered when it set out to create an Emergency Operations Center for Baghdad’s Rusafa district.
The idea arose from leaders’ difficulties with spreading information across the district. Iraqi security forces would respond to a roadside bomb attack or other catastrophic event and not tell American commanders — or each other — for two or three days, if at all. No one was talking.
The poor communication made it harder for leaders to keep tabs on what was going on. It also forced commanders to dispatch already busy platoons to investigate any unexplained explosion or gunfire. And as American troops hand over more responsibility to Iraqi forces, communication and coordination will be key.
"We needed to improve something," said Pvt. Hassan Jawad, a National Police representative in the operations center. "In the past when we received the calls, we were confused."
U.S. Army Col. Craig Collier, the 3rd Squadron commander, decided the best way to fix this was to establish a central place to share information.
The process was simple. Soldiers cleaned out a dirty room in one of 3/89’s joint security stations, said Sgt. 1st Class Chad Fisher, a Troop B soldier who helped create the center. They installed air conditioning and refrigerators to make it comfortable enough for a group of people to spend several hours a day in there. Then they hung two paper maps. The sole concession to technology was a computer and wall-mounted flat screen monitor that let those in the room make PowerPoint slides and brief each other.
After the work was done, the Americans gathered representatives from various Iraqi organizations: Iraqi Army, National Police, Iraqi police, traffic police, Rusafa Patrol, the fire department and the Ministry of the Interior, which was included because of the number of government ministries in the area. In contrast to status-conscious Iraq, the EOC would have no leader. Everyone, including the American representative, would be an equal.
The soldiers spent a couple weeks training the new team. Much of the training focused on skills Americans take for granted. Most Iraqis don’t grow up reading maps like many Americans. They also aren’t as familiar with computers.
"We basically took people who had never used a computer other than to check e-mail and taught them how to use it like a business," Fisher said.
By June, after only about a month of work, the center was ready to go.
Squadrons and battalions have been known to spend millions on microgrants to local businesses with mixed results, but 3/89 saw immediate success for the price of a modest used car. Just two or three days after it launched, the team responded to a tip about a female insurgent in the area.
"This thing started up faster than we thought it would," said Troop B 1st Sgt. Wesley Rehm.
Now a representative from each agency listens for reports over radio and phone each day from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m., although staff can be called in during off hours in an emergency.
"The ultimate goal is to get this thing 24/7 just like we do in the States (for) 911," Rehm said.
One of the maps on the wall offers at-a-glance information on what incidents have happened around Rusafa for the month. The Emergency Operations Center employees also make daily PowerPoint presentations for their commanders to pass on the day’s information. The briefings are similar to the intelligence briefings that are so familiar to American soldiers.
And, like similar facilities in the States, the center can be used to coordinate a response to more traditional emergencies like fires. Because of its ability to track problems over time, it can also pinpoint where the city is having trouble. A rash of fires in a single area, for example, could indicate an electrical problem that needs to be fixed.
The arrangement also has the agencies talking on an unofficial basis, said Staff Sgt. Deric Williams, who works on the EOC team. The men spend hours in a single room together waiting for calls. Williams said they chat about politics and the state of affairs in Iraq. The Iraqis ask questions about life in America. All of them show pictures of their families.
"All these guys we work around, they’re perfect guys," said Iraqi Police Cpl. Abdul Rassul. "We work well together."
