Moving Out
Written by Peter Buxbaum
MLF 2011 Volume: 5 Issue: 2 (March)
“We’re moving out millions of pieces of equipment in one of the largest logistics operations that we’ve seen in decades.” That was how President Barack Obama described the operation that began last August in the wake of the termination of the United States combat mission in Iraq and the reduction of U.S. forces to 50,000 troops.
The exodus of millions of pieces of military equipment, property and supplies involves more than just shipping from one location to another. It requires identifying what can and should be shipped home with units, what can be transferred to units in Afghanistan or elsewhere, and what excess equipment can, under regulation, be transferred to Iraqi security forces.
The Army Materiel Command [AMC] acts as the executive lead for the disposition of equipment coming out of Iraq and works at the task in conjunction with other Army and DoD agencies. AMC receives initial guidance on the disposition of equipment from U.S. Army Central Command (ARCENT) and the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). The U.S. Transportation Command is also a key player when it comes to the distribution aspect of the operation, assuring a sustained flow of equipment as it leaves Iraq for Kuwait and from there onto ships—or in a small number of cases, planes—for its next destination. The Defense Logistics Agency is in charge of selling or scrapping equipment that cannot be repaired economically.
Also helping in these processes are a number of private contractors as well as information technology tools which help to expedite and speed these processes.
The first step in the disposition of any piece of equipment is a visit to a redistribution property assistance team (RPAT) for an initial evaluation. There, a decision is made whether a given piece of equipment is going to be removed from Iraq. Then AMC receives a determination from ARCENT and CENTCOM about which units are leaving the theater, what equipment they are taking with them and what might be transferred elsewhere.
“The process begins when the Army Material Command receives the equipment and categorizes it into rolling and non-rolling stock while simultaneously assigning disposition instructions to each piece of equipment,” said Max Lobeto, program manager for logistics at ITT Mission Systems, which runs a retrograde operation at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
“We provide support to CENTCOM and ARCENT,” said Colonel Leroy Ontiberos, AMC’s team chief for the Responsible Reset Task Force (R2TF) in the continental United States. Ontiberos formerly played a similar role for R2TF in Kuwait.
“Both of those provide guidance and information on which units are coming out first and what equipment comes out with them,” he added. “Not all of the equipment leaves with the units and not all at once.”
If the equipment is being drawn down because it is no longer needed in Iraq, it is brought to the attention of decision makers at ARCENT. U.S. Air Force personnel play a large role in getting equipment into the RPAT yard, making sure it is accounted for, and getting it ready for shipments to Kuwait.
“After the RPAT evaluation, the equipment is loaded on the back of vehicles and moved out to Kuwait,” said Ontiberos. It is then up to ARCENT to determine whether equipment that is not accompanying units to their home bases is needed elsewhere within CENTCOM’s purview, such as in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, or for Army prepositioned stocks in Kuwait.
Contractors also play a key role in managing the retrograde out of Iraq. Most equipment shipped to Kuwait goes through one of three theater provided equipment refurbishment (TPER) sites, each of which is operated by a different contractor that works on light, medium and heavy tactical vehicles. The light tactical vehicle TPER, which deals with up-armored HMMWVs and armored security vehicles, is managed by LSI; the medium tactical vehicle site, which fixes 2.5 and 5 ton vehicles, is operated by Honeywell, and Oshkosh refurbishes Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks (HEMTT) and Heavy Equipment Transporter System (HETS) at the heavy tactical vehicle site. At the TPER sites, the vehicles are checked out and many are then referred to refurbishment lines in Kuwait.
At Camp Arifjan, ITT Mission Systems operates under the Kuwait Base Operations Support Services and Security (K-BOSSS) contract, which supports the military work force currently involved in retrograde operations. ITT also supports Department of Defense sustainment operations at 200 locations in 20 countries around the world.
“Through our Army pre-positioned stocks retrograde operations contract at Camp Arifjan, we provide direct support to the Army in achieving velocity, visibility and accountability of retrograded equipment,” said Lobeto.
ITT operates a three-phase process of reception, processing and shipping for those pieces of equipment with disposition instructions for Kuwait at Camp Arifjan. “The reception phase of the process accounts for the equipment,” explained Lobeto. “The processing phase identifies it for continued shipping to the United States or other locations such as ITT’s storage facility in Qatar. This phase may also identify equipment for repair prior to shipping or to be retained in APS in Kuwait. The shipping phase is the final stage in the process that moves the equipment from either the processing or repair facilities to a seaport of embarkation for onward movement.”
AMC also relies on technology to speed the drawdown process. One tool, called GB8 planner, automates the forecasting and capacity planning processes for the transportation and distribution processes. Another system, called Automated Reset Management Tool (ARMT), allows units to request disposition of their equipment online.
“GB8 planner is a Web-based tool that automates the manual process used to vet lateral transfers and disposition decisions for non-mission essential theater provided equipment,” said Ontiberos. “It was specifically built to improve the velocity at all levels of the vetting process. It provides centralized visibility of equipment due in and the RPAT yard, allows users to view documents, decisions and directives, and provides tailored reports with regard to the disposition of equipment. It also forecasts workload capacity and plans transportation requirements.”
ARMT is also a Web-based application that helps manage the equipment reset process. “ARMT increases the velocity of the process the get equipment into the hands of units,” said Ontiberos. ARMT pulls data on equipment, such as serial numbers, United States Army registration numbers, transportation control and movement documents, and radio frequency identification tags, from several different databases into a single system. This provides all the information required to track equipment from the field to maintenance shops and from there during transit back to unit home stations.
“ARMT provides near real-time situational awareness of the endto- end reset process in a single automated system,” said Ontiberos. “It eliminates the need to manipulate multiple systems for managing the reset process.”
ARMT automates processes for request and issue of disposition instructions for reset items, provides end-to-end in-transit visibility, provides direct feeds of maintenance data to reset locations and allows leaders to track reset progress down to individual pieces of equipment. The system also automates the process to develop and submit reset plans and disposition instructions.
“ARMT accounts for all equipment leaving Iraq and assumes responsibility for that equipment once it reaches Kuwait,” said Ontiberos. If the equipment drawn down from Iraq is determined not to be needed by CENTCOM, it is transferred to the Army Materiel Command to be shipped back to one of its depots in the continental United States. Nearly all of the equipment making its way back to CONUS will be transported by ship, with the arrangements made by the United States Transportation Command.
Trucks that have been transported stateside will usually find themselves at the Red River Army Depot in Texarkana, Texas, or at the Letterkenny Army Depot in Chambersburg, Pa., which are considered centers of excellence for the maintenance of wheeled vehicles. Tracked vehicles, such as Bradley fighting vehicles, M88 armored recovery vehicles, and tanks will go for maintenance at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. Radios and other electronic equipment are normally removed from the vehicles and sent to Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania, where they undergo a separate reset operation. Once that is accomplished the radio and other electronic systems are reintegrated into the vehicle and checked out. Equipment slated for disposal is transferred to the Defense Logistics Agency.
Some equipment gets special treatment. Mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles, most notably, were issued to units in Iraq and are still considered to be nonstandard equipment, which typically is not repatriated with units to their home stations.
“Some MRAPs are pushed forward to Afghanistan and other locations,” said Ontiberos. Other nonstandard equipment is treated similarly. If it is identified as such by ARCENT, nonstandard equipment is often shipped off to other units that require it.
“It has been a long time since AMC had to move this much equipment,” said Ontiberos. “We are moving more equipment out of Iraq than in the Army’s entire existence. It goes to show what a little automation and a lot of elbow grease will get you.” ♦