Edits made by – Major Lewis C2 Cell

Edits made by – Major Lewis C2 Cell 1. 3rd Bde AST identified the following baseline configuration for Interpreter/Translators (I/Ts): 8-10 per Bn AST + 5-10 under Bde AST control. Total requested = 40, minimum required = 30. An absolute minimum of four (4) additional I/Ts is required in the Bde HSC. This number will facilitate staff planning and coordination for both current and future operations and allow for a limited amount of on-demand transcription. Combined with the Bns this results in an absolute minimum of 25 I/Ts. 2. Equipment for Iraqi battalions. 

The lack of dedicated vehicles will negatively impact on the initial reception of the three battalions of 750 soldiers each. For each reception activity such as medical in-processing, time will be spent marching to that location and will reduce the amount of available reception and integration time available in any given day. The vehicular needs of the 3rd Bde ASTs are as follows: Two SUV/Pickup trucks per AST plus one 20-PAX bus/van per AST for a total of 8 SUV/Pickups and 4 buses Seven SUV/Pickup trucks per battalion and three for the Brigade HSC for a total of 24 SUV/pickups. One ambulance per battalion for a total of 3. The communications needs of the 3rd Bde ASTs are as follows: Three Motorola type radios per battalion AST and two Motorola type radios for the brigade AST for a total of 11. Eight Motorola type radios per battalion and four Motorola type radios for the brigade HSC for a total of 28. One radio “base station” for the 3rd Bde AST, one for each battalion and a final one for the brigade HSC for a total of 5. Based on current information, the soldiers assigned to the 3rd Brigade will be issued weapons from a pool of AK-47s here at KMTB. This pool is estimated to be 1,000 weapons and is jointly shared with the Squad Leaders Course and the Senior Non-Commissioned Officers Course. There are not sufficient weapons for both of the NCO Academies and our soldiers to retain weapons throughout the training cycle. This will have two impacts. The first is that an additional week will be necessary for re-zero and re-qualification of all soldiers once their permanent weapons arrive. The second impact will be during collective (squad and platoon) training when weapons must be shared across the force. Not every unit will be able to conduct field training with weapons as they will simply to be available. Additional time will be added to the POI to ensure all squads and platoons have a full complement of weapons for each collective Situational Training Exercise. It is difficult to estimate the specific impact at this time but I am assuming an additional 1-2 weeks per battalion. Done – Major Lewis C2 Cell 3. Automation support. Currently, the ASTs are operating using computers and printers brought from home station. The number of computers and printers on-hand is not sufficient to meet anticipated future needs. CMATT-KMTB had computers, printers, scanners and associated software currently in-bound and this problem might have addressed this issue. A minimum of two machines per AST, including the Bde AST, are required to meet anticipated requirements. Additionally, software that enables the creation of documents and other digital products in Arabic is required with each computer. Finally, the ASTs are using the single copier available in the CMATT CP for 100% of their local reproduction requirements. These are significant are will only get greater as the battalions begin to fill. For example, each month each Iraqi soldier will require a bilingual leave/pass form to exit from and return to KMTB. A conservative estimate is that this is between 1500 and 1600 copies per month of this single page document. The automation needs of the 3rd Bde ASTs are as follows: Two Proxima/Infocus machines per AST for a total of 8 machines One copier per AST for a total of 4. Extra toner cartridges are also required, 3 per copier for a total of 12. PCs. The recent fielding of one laptop per AST has lessened but not eliminated the requirement for computers. An additional set of Arabic-capable computers is required for each Iraqi unit. A distribution of 1 per company, 1 per staff section and 1 per Bn/Bde commander totals 40. Each of these will require a printer, printer cable, power strip surge protector and a minimum of 2 printer cartridges. Scanners. The addition of one scanner per Bn AST and one per battalion will significantly improve the transmission of hardcopy documentation between KMTB and other locations. Hardcopy documents can be scanned as digital files and then forwarded as e-mail attachments. A total of 6 scanners are required. 4. Funding. Received a block of four DODAACs under a common UIC from CPA-CMATT J4 (LTC Avalos) for use by the ASTs. A supply mission to establish accounts at Camp Anaconda occurred on 14 April. The question remains as to what is the programmed expenditure for these UICs/DODAACs. I.E. how many dollars per month are the ASTs allowed to spend? The guidance of “spend till someone asks” could result in us running out of money when we most need it. Pending any definitive guidance, I have implemented the following budgetary guidelines: $300/month for expendable SSSC type supplies (cleaning and office type supplies) for each Bn AST with an additional $500/month for the Bde AST to meet both current team requirements and as a backstop for the battalions. I have further established the guidance of $2000/Bn AST and $4000 for the Bde AST for the duration of the mission for durable goods, i.e. automation equipment, available from the supply point at Camp Anaconda. 5. 3rd Bde Reception, Staging & Integration. On 16 April, 153 senior NCOs and 16 officers arrived at KMTB to begin their 30-day integration training. This left only a total of 18 days prior to the arrival of the first set of 750 new soldiers for 5th battalion. An additional seven days were lost as monthly leave for the officers and NCOs on-hand. The final total was 11 days available for integration training of officers and senior NCOs only. The squad leaders of the battalion did not graduate from school until the 17th and will not return until the day prior to the first fill day for 5th Battalion. No integration of senior NCOs with officers of the 3rd Brigade was possible as they did not graduate until 22 April and then departed on leave to return after 1 May. Additionally, while the battalions received a nearly complete fill of squad leaders and senior NCOs, the brigade HSC got only three squad leaders out of an authorized 20 and only 16 of 26 authorized senior NCOs. These numbers do not include the seven additional senior NCOs and 12 squad leaders in the brigade engineer company All commanders, staff officers, senior NCOs and squad leaders will not have conducted full unit integration prior to 1 May. I currently rate as AMBER the ability of the full suite of officers and NCOs to successfully complete full integration prior to the reception of soldiers for 5th and 6th battalions beginning on 4 May and 9 May respectively. 6. Training and administrative materials. 3rd Bde AST is not staffed nor resourced to conduct transcription of training and administrative documents being forwarded to us. Nor are we currently resourced with either printers and/or copies to facilitate the reproduction of these documents locally. Standard, bilingual forms, both training and administrative publications and training materials are required in order for us to conduct this mission efficiently. While the Squad Leader's Manual was provided in this format, it is over 100 pages long, precluding us from doing any reproduction of this manual locally. Currently, I am being told that requests for publication reproduction will take six weeks from receipt of request. If this is the case, materials I would request today and have delivered in six weeks would only support the last two weeks of training for 5th Bn and the last four weeks of training for 7th Bn. I recently discovered that a bilingual Request for Leave/Pass exists in hardcopy. Such "discovery learning" interferes with mission accomplishment and will most likely become more uncommon in the future as my personnel become increasingly focused on their near-term training missions. A partial list of standard bilingual hard copy forms includes: Daily Personnel Data Summary, Request for Personnel Transfer (within the same battalion, within the same brigade and between brigades), Request for and/or Approval of Enlisted Promotion, Request for and/or Approval of Officer Promotion, Request for Schooling, Request for Administrative (Office and/or Cleaning Supplies), Request for Tactical Supplies (Food, Water, Training Ammunition, Basic Load Ammunition, Fuel, Medical Supplies, Barrier Material). Without these resources, it will be impossible for my teams and I to accurately and effectively document and record training and adminstrative actions. Done, see website – Major Lewis C2 Cell