Iraqi air force soars through U.S. guided exercise

Published June 30, 2008
By Tech. Sgt. Amanda Callahan
447th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs

NEW AL MUTHANA AIR BASE, Iraq -- Members of the Coalition Air Force Training Team assigned to the 370th Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadron at New Al Muthana Air Base, Iraq, have been training and mentoring members of the Iraqi air force in their functional areas for years. Recently, the 370th AEAS partnered with members of the 447th Air Expeditionary Group at Sather Air Base to evaluate how well Iraqi functional areas communicated and responded during a ground emergency exercise held at NAMAB.

The U.S. Air Force members evaluated the notification of each of the areas, and the reactions of the Iraqi air crew, maintenance crew, fire department, air traffic controllers, command post and ambulance service. After it was revealed to the air crew that a gas turbine compressor was on fire (simulated), the Iraqi air force members went into action.

"Most of my people, especially firefighters, they are new at this," said General Kareem, the Iraqi air base commander. "We need more exercises on the aircraft. Otherwise, they were very good, and we love it, me and my people."

They may be new at ground emergency exercises, but the fire department's evaluators sang the praises of the firemen to the general during an out-brief after the exercise was completed.

"I think the fire department exceeded what we expected of them," said Senior Master Sgt. Arthur Patrie, 447th Expeditionary Civil Engineer fire fighter, deployed from North Kingstown, Rhode Island Air National Guard. "Their motivation, enthusiasm, their willingness to get out there, their aggressiveness - it gave us a strong foundation to build on."

The praises didn't stop with the fire department. The Iraqi command post personnel thought on their feet and did "very, very well; better than expected," according to Master Sgt. David Satchell, 447th AEG command post. He recommended the Iraqi command post keep more detailed records of events, and even created a checklist and events log for them to use as a template.

"They hit everything almost by memory," added Sergeant Satchell, deployed from Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. "I told them it'd be better if they have some sort of record-keeping so that the youngest guy would know what to do in this situation."

Although members of NAMAB performed beyond expectations, there were a few recommendations to help the Iraqi air force prepare for not only a ground emergency, but also a larger force in the future.

"This is a base of a few hundred guys, and only half are here at any one time with very few airplanes," added Col. Mark Brunworth, 370th AEAS commander currently deployed from Yokota Air Base, Japan. "We [the U.S. Air Force] do things the way we do because we can take any one person out of it and plug a new person in, and the person you plug in knows exactly what's going on. Here, they all know each other; it's like a big family, so we're working to lay the groundwork for when they do get bigger, when there are 1,000 people on this one base, they will have those procedures in place."

Rebuilding an air force isn't done overnight, and Colonel Brunworth has a plan to forge ahead, adding new objectives for the Iraqis to meet.

"Baby steps - next time we'll make it a little more complicated, surprise them with it, more injects," the colonel said. "Just think about when we first had this meeting in March, we didn't know how the command post and fire dept would even get notified; that's where we were at; that took until April to fix. Now, we've been able to put it into action. We're making a lot of progress with baby steps."