Then he’d lug that to a pilot who flew it to the carriers. Twelve years later, that same information is sent in a 10-megabyte file. “Nowadays we just hit the send button on e-mail,” explains Navy Cmdr. Mike Wilson, who is helping run the Joint Operations Center, the war’s technological hub at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar.
I joined a tour of the JOC, as it’s called, the other night. From the outside, it looks like just another one of the ubiquitous desert-tan tents inside one of the ubiquitous desert-tan warehouses on base. And it looks pretty low-tech at that. Big air-conditioning tubes covered in a kind of tinfoil extend from the tent and there is a constant low droning. But inside the cramped tent is where the military will gather every detail from the field it can to produce BDAs (Battle Damage Assessment) and provide Gen. Tommy Franks, who arrived here Wednesday, and his “command group” with the information they need to run operations from the neighboring war room.
At about 10:30 p.m. on Monday night, the JOC was jumping. Inside the fluorescent-lighted tent, it’s impossible to tell day from night, which helps those on the 12-hour night shift. About 30 soldiers sit elbow to elbow at computers and secure phones called STUs that line long desks three rows deep. Each computer has a desktop camera mounted on it to patch a soldier into the many VTCs (Video Tele-Conferences) that they have with field commanders and Washington. Six plasma screens show troop movements–the enemy in red and the “coalition forces” in blue. A U.S. and a British flag are up on the wall. The computer screens were sanitized for our visit, but one had a map of the Persian Gulf that showed every coalition ship on it. It was lit up with more than 100 bright turquoise dots. On those screens, the 80 soldiers who work for the JOC track the movement of every ship, airplane and ground force. “We’re looking for big muscle movements,” Wilson explains.
But the JOC can also look in on squadrons, which carry GPS systems to pinpoint their unit’s location in the desert. “It allows us to keep track of our folks to help prevent fratricide,” Wilson says. Many of the allied casualties in the first gulf war were from friendly fire. This time around it’s NBC (Nuclear-Biological-Chemical) weapons that have soldiers most nervous. That’s where the Army’s Capt. William Valentin, 39, from Three Rivers, Texas, comes in. He mans the NBC desk at the JOC. If sensors in the field send the alarm that troops have been hit with sarin gas, for example, Valentin advises the commanders about which MOPP (Mission Oriented Protective Posture) level to order the troops to adopt. Then he creates a computer graphic that charts the “plume,” the spread of the toxin.
Of course enemy soldiers won’t be wearing GPS units and they won’t to be keen on revealing their activities. The CHOPS (Chief of Operations) like Wilson will rely heavily on intelligence. If proximity is power, it’s telling that the “J2” desk is right next to Wilson’s. J2 is the intelligence section of any joint operation like CENTCOM. But there is also a SOCC desk for the liaison to Special Operations in Kuwait and a RECCE desk where the soldier tracking reconnaissance sits. The JOC taps technology from everywhere imaginable-from Predator spy drones to, surprisingly, the news. “If it’s confirmed,” adds Army Capt. Roberto Salas, 24, from the Bronx, N.Y., who is one of the soldiers keeping track of ground troops. During our visit, one plasma screen was tuned to CNN.
Reporters will see some of what the JOC is scooping up. The Pentagon, in an effort to counter the torrent of disinformation expected from Saddam Hussein, will provide photographic proof for the press from satellites and weapons systems video to back up its claims. “We recognize that we could win the ground war, the air war and the maritime war, but lose the war of public opinion,” says Air Force Capt. Joe Della Vedova, one of the press officers assigned to the JOC. It’s his job to cull the information from the hub for Franks’s briefings. It’s enough to fill a telephone book.
