REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Thursday, March 20, 2003

SITTING in the nerve centre of the US military operation, one Australian officer had an astonishing eye-in-the-sky view of the impending attack on Iraq.

Major Tony (first name only for security reasons) helped track movement of military units on the battlefield using hitech aids including video feeds from drones.

Watching on plasma screens, he watched live footage of battles as they unfolded, safe in a building hundreds of kilometres from the fighting.

Major Tony, from Sydney, was one of 60 US, British and Australian officers working 12hour shifts in the Joint Operations Centre (JOC) from where US General Tommy Franks ran the war against Iraq.

The hi-tech, high-security centre – located on a US base – is lined with computer work stations, telephones and plasma TV screens.

The centre ran around the clock, digesting intelligence and other information to assist the commander make the best possible decisions.

Major Tony, a father of two, a veteran of 29 years in the Australian Army and on an exchange posting with the US military, said his job was to help track movement of army, marines and special forces on the battlefield.

Using video feeds from unmanned aircraft, he said it would be possible for commanders to view a streetby-street battle for Baghdad from the JOC, 1000km away.

“They have very good information systems that track near real time locations of units, right down to particular vehicles,” he told reporters during a late-night tour of the war bunker.