Iraqi Police Training Center to Take the Place of Coalition Base

Photo By Sgt. Cassandra Groce | Emergency Security Unit Police Officers conduct an area search during a five-day skills validation course being held at Forward Operating Base Remagen. The base is due to be handed over to a National Police Brigade in the coming months to become a full fledged Police Training Center in the Salah Ah Din Province.  

FORWARD OPERATING BASE REMAGEN, IRAQ

06.16.2006

Story by Sgt. Cassandra Groce 

133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

FORWARD OPERATING BASE REMAGEN, Iraq - Forward Operating Base Remagen is on the verge of being transferred from Coalition Forces to Iraqi Police control.

The base currently maintains more than 1000 Coalition Forces troops and Kellogg, Brown and Root civilian employees, all of which will be moved to other bases to make way for an Iraqi Police Training Center, the first in the Salah Ah Din Province.

"The FOB will be turned over to a national police brigade," said Sgt. First Class John Chango, the FOB's mayor and a Soldier in Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 3rd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division. "Eventually this will become a training camp for them. They will be able to house and train approximately 1,000 Iraqi Police at any given time."

The handover will take time. Coalition Forces must clean up all unusable material from the FOB. In addition, they have to make sure everything is running smoothly when the Iraqi Police take control.

"We have to make sure we give them a working FOB " every building has power, electricity and fuel capabilities," said Chango.
The base is an ideal place for setting up the training center because of the amount of space that is available. "There is enough space up on the north side of the FOB that they could make small mock cities to do all of their search training," said Chango.

It is also already equipped with most of the assets required to conduct top level training including housing, weapons ranges, a jail facility, classroom training areas, a helipad and a fully-equipped dining facility. "The location of the FOB is real strategicâ?¦this is actually right outside of Tikrit, only about a 10 to 15 minute drive from here, so they could actually be staged here.. to accomplish vast missions," Chango added.

Already the base is being used to train Iraqi Police in preparation for the power shift. Newly-trained Iraqi Police Officers, who have completed an Iraqi Police training course outside the province, come to FOB Remagen for skills validation. The five-day course is designed to reinforce the training they have already received from Iraqi trainers.

The course reviews various movement formations, reacting to IEDs and react to contact. Community policing, marksmanship training, weapon safety and personnel search are also covered.

"They come through us already trained through a police academy, or advanced training course," said Staff Sgt. Michael Ledbetter, a squad leader in A Company, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment. "They know the stuff already. We just fine tune it."

With the completion of the hand over, the Salah Ah Din province will no longer require validation training to ensure their officers are properly trained. They will instead be training their own officers to take over the difficult duties of maintaining law and order in the province.

• Date Taken: 06.16.2006
• Date Posted: 06.16.2006 08:31
• Story ID: 6826
• Location: FORWARD OPERATING BASE REMAGEN, IQ