Joint Operations Center Employed All-Digitized Battlefield in Iraq War by Alan B. Nichols Military historians may one day look back and proclaim that Operation Iraqi Freedom was a milestone in technological warfare. The operation was conducted from the forward location of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) located at Camp As Sayliyah 20 miles outside Doha, Qatar. As Sayliyah is a sprawling Army installment spread out over multiple acres that is home to numerous warehouses for materiel, mess operations and the billeting of soldiers. Gen. Tommy Franks, U.S. commander of CENTCOM, and his staff conducted the war from inside one of the buildings at the camp where the Joint Operations Center is located. The Joint Operations Center, commonly referred to as the JOC, was the nerve center of the Iraq war. It was and continues to be a technological marvel, featuring state-of-the-art communications and computer capability that resulted in the most closely monitored battlefield in modern history. It was a digitized battlefield complete with video game-like visuals that gave Franks virtually instantaneous information as the war progressed, allowing the commander and his top officials to maintain constant co mmunication with his leaders and troops out on the field. Maintenance personnel, for instance, as well as some M1 Abrams tanks and other selected armored units were equipped with computers that enabled troops to send and receive e-mail. Vital tactical and strategic data were gathered and transmitted with such speed that coalition commanders sometimes seemed to know Iraqi troop maneuvers before the Iraqis did. To execute any war successfully, communication is essential. Thus, the U.S. coalition made it its first order of business to take out Iraqís command and control infrastructure, without which no army can function effectively for very long. After the Iraqi command and control capability was destroyed, the Iraqi army, as predicted, began to fall apart. These factors were key elements of a battle plan that was executed with dizzying speed. The U.S. command leaders were able to make good decisions quickly because the JOC was and continues to be one of the most sophisticated and effective military communications systems in the world. The JOC was built under a contract between the Joint Precision Strike Demonstration Project and Raytheon Co. The system, according to company information, allows CENTCOMís field commandeers ìto maintain seamless connectivity with the theater component staff and command staff at their main headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla.î Able to support ìrapid fire forward deployment of essential personnel,î the JOC is the first deployable command center designed to unify combatant commanders, connecting all of the computer servers and communications networks needed by the commanders. Completely self-contained, the complex includes power distribution, office automation, and computer and communications networks. Beyond its vital role in delivering critical battlefield information, the complex has performed essential communications functions as part of CENTCOMís administration of the Middle East ìArea of Responsibility,î which includes Afghanistan and the rest of the region. During the war, JOC-based users included personnel from the four service branches of the U.S. military as well as special operations and liaison officers representing the U.S. Strategic Combined Joint Task Force assigned to Afghanistan. Given that many hugely important functions were performed there, the JOC is surprisingly not very large. According to CENTCOM spokesman Maj. Pete Mitchell, the complex was ìa confined spaceî in a long, narrow room 50 feet long and 25 feet wide. It included four long tables ìpackedî with some 40 to 50 PC-based workstations, comprising what he called a ìfacilitated computer network.î As Mitchell explained, the work conducted at the various workstations fell into three classified levels in what was effectively a ìclosed-loop military-specific Internet.î At one level was the Non-Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet). This was the network that produced news releases and other information for the media and general public. At the second level was the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), which dealt with top-secret information through its own separate internal Internet system. This was the network used by the commander and his field personnel and included secret Web sites and a tightly secured e-mail system. The third level was a top-secret Internet communications system where Web searches were conducted. This level was known as JWICS (Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System), which together with the other networks comprised a ìrobust and well-attended operation,î Mitchell said. In addition to the PC monitors, the JOC featured six large plasma monitors that provided commanders with a digitized battlefield, offering a virtual real-time display of air operations and troop positions and movements down to the brigade level, said Mitchell, who noted that coalition ground units were represented on the monitors by blinking blue dots and Iraqi units by blinking red dots. The monitors gave users the feel of a video game, but Mitchell said it was more like ìan electronic chess board.î Periodically, the system refreshed itself, showing shifts in unit positions on the screens. The monitors also displayed video graphics relayed from the Predator and other surveillance-reconnaissance vehicles. If CENTCOM felt a strike was not successful after analyzing a video, a restrike could then be ordered. The technology of the JOC enabled users to retrieve and synthesize complex information in a way that could ìdrive the decisionsî of Franks, Mitchell said. ìIt is quite something to see the JOC in operation. We are all very proud of it.î The JOC and the effective way it enabled coalition forces to remove Saddam Husseinís regime in a remarkably short time is testimony to the validity of increased service coordination and integration in the U.S. military, according to one commander. As Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in the April 14 issue of Defense News, ìJoint warfighting is the key to greater things on the battlefield. I think thatís clearly been proven here.î In this era of high-tech equipment, successful war execution increasingly depends on effective command, communications, control, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems that, taken together as a cohesive whole, eliminate what Myers calls ìgaps and seams on the battle space.î In the case of the Iraq war, the delivery of abundant, reliable, virtual real-time battlefield information meant that Franks and his staff could make better decisions with regard to deploying coalition forces in an integrated fashion, a major factor in the coalitionís overall success. Alan B. Nichols is a freelance writer in Bethesda, Md.