Mine and Explosive Ordnance Information Coordination Center Operations in Iraq

Since Desert Storm in 1991, U.S. forces have operated in numerous foreign areas to include Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq littered with land mines and the explosive devices of war. Each of these countries presented a unique set of explosive hazards, enemy activities, environmental conditions, and operational requirements for our soldiers. In each case, U.S. forces participated as part of the joint and multinational coalition community, often including military and nongovernmental organizations. Historically, each area of operations might have had an ad hoc Mine Information Coordination Cell (MICC) to track explosive hazards, coordinate safe military movement in mined areas, support force protection through hazard awareness training, and occasionally provide oversight of indigenous demining activities. If humanitarian demining operations were active in the region, the United Nations often established a National Mine Action Authority (NMAA) to coordinate Mine Action Center (MAC) operations in theater. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army does not have procedures or a doctrinal organization to conduct MICC operations, which often results in regional improvisation and diversity among units. Minefields and hazards might be tracked with Excel spreadsheets, FoxBASE , Access database, or Microsoft PowerPoint slides and a grease pencil. Often, relations between military MICCs and humanitarian demining activities were hostile, or at least strained. Coordination between coalition partners and U.S. ground forces had no common baseline for information dissemination and cooperation. ; Published in Engineer p33-35 Jan-Mar 2004.