First graduates of Iraq senior staff course
On 15 July, 37 senior Iraqi officers graduated from the NATO-supported Iraqi Joint Staff College at Ar Rustamiyah, and will now fill key positions in the country’s security forces.
The course, which began in September 2005, provided the students, who rank from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general, with an understanding of international relations, national security, defence policy, leadership, international and humanitarian law. Also included in the course were operational planning, computer use and an English language training.
Members of NATO Training Mission – Iraq (NTM-I) helped the Iraqi JSC Directing Staff to develop the course and then served as mentors, partnering with the staff and assisting in supervising and guiding the students through the 10-month program.
The Iraqi Minister of Defence, Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jasim al-Obeidi, thanked NTM-I for its contribution, noting that its members continued to do their very best to serve the Iraqi Security Forces. He said the students had achieved a high standard and would now go and fill key positions in the Iraqi Security Forces and make a very real contribute to the secure future of the Iraqi people.
“These students have been trained by the best Iraqi officers in the country,” said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, NTM-I Commander, during the graduation. “Fifty students graduated recently from the Junior Staff Course of the JSC and now 37 graduate from the Senior Staff Course. Those are 87 reasons the terrorists should know they are going to be defeated,” he said.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and former Prime Minister of Iraq, Ibrahim Jaafari, opened the Joint Staff College Sept. 25, 2005. It is one element of the NATO Training Mission Iraq (NTM-I), whose mission is to train, advise Iraqi forces and to provide technical assistance and to facilitate donation of equipment.