The group participated in a site-exploitation training event here at Camp Deutsch on Victory Base Complex, July 26, as part of a seven-week Combined Joint Explosive Triage Course instructed by the 22nd Chemical Battalion, Task Force Troy.

CJET trains members of the Iraqi Police, Army and Federal Police on how to process a blast scene. They cover a wide variety of training such as evidence collection and handling, fingerprinting and fingerprint development techniques, triage lab procedures and record keeping, said Capt. Joseph Fuller, Task Force Troy’s partnership and transition officer.

Staff Sgt. Donald Pearl, lead instructor with the 22nd Chemical Battalion, said the Iraqi EOD technicians seem excited to attend the course and increase their knowledge and skills.

“They are very eager to learn and want to find out what they can from us. They want to improve their skills, and in turn, help improve security in Iraq,” Pearl said.

One Iraqi FP, 2nd Lt. Ali Adnan Qassim, said this is the sort of training that the Iraqi Security Forces need to win the counter-insurgency fight.

“I am getting a lot of experience here that I can take back to my unit,” said Qassim. “I can go back with what I learned here and it will help me and those I work with.”

Once the Iraqi technicians have learned all the procedures in a classroom setting, they are put through a realistic training scenario to test their skills.

“We’ll set up a blast site as if an IED just went off,” said instructor Sgt. Christopher St. Clair. “We have them arrive on the scene and simply tell them to go to work.”

The instructors increase the stress of the blast-scene experience by adding role-players to the scenario.

“We’ll have our guys video-taping the students from a distance,” said St. Clair. “We’ll also have them interfere with the process somehow. The students will have to secure the scene, preserve the evidence, and control the crowds around them. Then they still have to get everything back to the triage lab.”

This week, five more Iraqi EOD technicians will complete the course, joining 24 others who have completed the training during the past year.