Iraqi senior engineers visit Langley

  • Published
  • By Jennifer Kleinhenz
  • Air Combat Command Public Affairs
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (AFNS) --  Langley Air Force Base officials opened their gates to five Iraqi military members and one Iraqi contractor June 10 as a part of the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq Iraqi Security Forces Senior Engineer Symposium. 

The Iraqi Security Forces Senior Engineer Symposium showcased how the U.S. military conducts facilities engineering and management in order to empower Iraqi senior engineers to design, develop and execute their own plans for aiding Iraq's expanding military abilities.

Maj. Gen. Abdullah Nezar, Brig. Gen. Nabeel Alhamdani, Brig. Gen. Alaa Altaei, Yousif Mohanad, Col. Hanesh Ahmed, Col. Mohammed Mahmood Qasim and Saad Hamdi visited several Langley AFB sites and attended a briefing at Headquarters Air Combat Command.

"The reason for this symposium is to come here and view most of the installations and how they operate them and how they construct them to transfer all these experiences to Iraqis and do the same thing as they do here," said General Nezar, the ministry of interior infrastructure director in Iraq.

"The main idea is to provide the Iraqi security, either ministry of interior or ministry of defense, with facilities to provide security for all the people in Iraq," General Nezar said.

Iraqi senior engineers attended a briefing and visited locations such as the in-house construction site at the 1st Force Support Squadron and the 1st Operations Group. The briefing provided an overview as to how ACC members accomplish civil engineer installation management and support for their installations. 

For Col. Richard Wheeler, the installations and mission support deputy director, it is very important for the U.S. to join with other countries to exchange ideas and spread knowledge. 

"For our allies, spreading that knowledge and information is critical to ensuring they can become self-sufficient in the near term and in the long term," Colonel Wheeler said.

However, this exchanging of knowledge and ideas works both ways. 

"A lot of the engineers we deal with from countries we are engaged with have earned their degrees from universities all over the world and those experiences pay huge dividends for us in the U.S. military," he said.

Colonel Wheeler agreed with and elaborated on General Nezar's wish to provide security for all the people in Iraq.

"I think that the average American does not realize most of the allies we deal with have the same goals and values and they want to be able to provide the best facilities and infrastructure they can for their people," Colonel Wheeler said.

The MNSTC-I, a division of the Multinational Force-Iraq in charge of developing, organizing, training, equipping and sustaining the Iraqi Security Ministries, funded the symposium from June 6 until June 14 in Norfolk, Va. 

The Iraqi senior engineers attended seminars held by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Norfolk District, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Mid Atlantic and Army Installation Command at Fort Eustis, Va. 

"We visited different installations, some for the Army, for the Navy and for the Air Force, so we can have a complete vision for all of the different installations," said General Nezar.