[Article] Irish Defence Forces get war intelligence from television

Ro

From page 10 of the Sunday Tribune:

It doesn't look like much, with two televisions and a large screen displaying a map of Iraq, but this room is, believe it or not, Ireland's war room.

This conference room, on the ground floor of Defence Forces' headquarters near the Phoenix Park in Dublin, is home to what is officially called the Operations Monitoring Cell, which has the job of keeping a 24-hour watch on events unfolding in the Gulf. And with military parlance so much in vogue, those who fancy themselves as US marines or Sky News reporters can also call it the 'Sit Cen', short for situation centre.

"It would be strange if we weren't monitoring events," says Comdt Kieran McDaid of the Defence Forces press office, who says the principal purpose of the unit is to ensure that senior army officers and the government are kept up to speed on the latest developments in the war.

Keeping abreast of the war is simply down to a "professional interest", says McDaid, but it is also necessitated by the fact that there are Defence Forces personnel stationed with the UN in the middle-east.

The unit, staffed by officers on a 24-hour basis, provides two daily briefings. However with no seperate intelligence sources or international network, the information is coming from the exact same source as the public get theirs - journalists and news programmes, including RTE, Sky, the BBC and CNN.

"All we can do is track what is happening and what has been confirmed, and then we give an assessment of where it is going", says McDaid. "We watch the reports and try and make some sense of how operations are progressing on both sides."

Staff bring their training and experience (many of them have studied with the military in the US and Britain) to analyse the information, and map out troop movements, engagements tactics and positions on both sides as well as assessing how the war is likely to unfold over the coming days.

The insatiable demand for information and analysis has also seen many Defence Forces personnel called onto radio and TV programmes to provide the same analysis their superiors and the government have been receiving.

The article is accompanied by a photo of the "war room". It consists of a small room with two TVs, one on a bookstand and the other on a press. There's a large map on the wall with a rather menacing individual pointing at it and explaining to three elderly gentlemen where Iraq is. :rolleyes:

If anyone has a scanner...

sceptre

Originally posted by Ro
and explaining to three elderly gentlemen where Iraq is. :rolleyes:

... as long as they're not mixing it up with Monaghan:D

Victor

Sur of course dey will also be reading de papers :rolleyes:

I suspect this is only one part of the operation, with some other sources available, diplomatic or military-military, especially seeing as we are good little boys regarding Shannon.

Dramatic increase in foreign military flights into Baldonnel
30/03/03 00:00
By Ted Harding, Barry O'Kelly and Sean MacCarthaigh

Military flights by foreign aircraft increased dramatically at Casement Aerodrome at Baldonnel in the lead in to the US and British invasion of Iraq, The Sunday Business Post has learned.

The government will come under fire in the Dáil this weekover the use of the Dublin facility, with TDs demanding details of the flights. The revelations will fuel the ongoing controversy over US troop movements through Shannon airport.

Separately, security sources disclosed that Assistant Garda Comm issioner Kevin Carty has instructed his superintendents to log "all incidents - protests - in the Dublin Metropolitan Region involving anti-war protesters . . . in particular, incidents attracting media attention should be immediately notified to this office".

Eyewitnesses in south west Dublin, including gardai, have told this newspaper of flights on an almost daily basis in the weeks prior to the start of the war in Iraq.This has continued since the US-led offences began.

"They have been in and out of Baldonnel virtually every day," one eyewitness said.

Another witness spoke of flights arriving at unusual hours, such as prior to day-break.

Security sources say German, French, Swedish and British military aircraft regularly use the aerodrome. However, the sources allege that the passengers are usually diplomats and politicians.

The Minister for Defence, Michael Smith,told the Dáil earlier this month that only 22 US military aircraft had used Casement since September 2001.

"The aircraft in question were on routine training flights," Smith said.

He said there were just four types of US plane that had used the facility; Learjets, DC9s, Hercules, and Boeing 727s.

Subsequently, the Department of Defence said all of these flights had occurred before last July, and said there had been no visits by US military planes to Baldonnel since.

But Sinn Féin TDs say these answers raised more issues than they resolved. DublinTD Aengus O Snodaigh pointed out this weekend that the Irish Air Corps does not use DC9s, Hercules or 727s, and will this week demand further details on the issue of "training" from the minister.

"We want to know the specific nature of the training exercises for each of the 22 planes landed; the dates, the specific purpose; the number of military personnel on board; the type of armaments carried; the number of armaments; the duration of their stay; and whether landing charges were levied," he said.

"If related to training exercises, we want to know the number and rank of the Irish personnel involved; and whether the training exercise was under the auspices of Nato, Partnership for Peace, the Rapid Reaction Force or some other military configuration," he said.

TDs will also quiz Smith on whether the flights were inspected by the Irish authorities for breaches of the Defence Act and the Air Navigation Act.

These impose various stipulations on visiting military personnel, including seeking prior permission from the minister before wearing their uniforms or carrying their side arms in the state.

"Is this like Shannon, where we're told one thing, than another thing, then eventually the truth comes out?" O Snodaigh said. Anti-war activists are set to launch a campaign against Fianna Fail's TDs by attending their clinics and occupying their offices, forcing them to defend their positions on the war and on the use of Shannon by the US military.

Different protests have already taken place late last week at the clinics of Fianna Fail Dublin TDs Barry Andrews, Sean Ardagh and Brian Lenihan.