Coast Guard gives Iraqi marines lessons in maritime security

Coast Guard gives Iraqi marines lessons in maritime security    The U.S. Coast Guard is heading an effort to teach Iraqi marines how to better protect their country’s maritime infrastructure and territorial waters.
   The program, led by an eight-man team from the Coast Guard’s Pacific Tactical Law Enforcement Detachment 102, is conducted aboard the “USS Ogden.” The Iraqi marines are taught visit, board, search and seizure operations.
   “The goal of the training is for the Iraqi marines to become autonomous and to conduct their own boardings without any coalition support,” said Lt. J.G. Torrey Bertheau, the Coast Guard officer heading the program, in a statement.
   Iraqi marine platoons spend a week aboard the “Ogden” and use the ship as a simulated oil tanker. U.S. Coast Guardsmen enact the roles of the tanker’s crew members. The Americans and Iraqis go through worst-case scenarios for dealing with uncooperative crewmen.