Written question asked by Claire Curtis-Thomas (Labour) on Wednesday, 18 November 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 23 November 2009. It was answered by Bill Rammell (Labour) on Thursday, 26 November 2009 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Iraq: Politics and Government

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence to what extent US and UK land-based military services in Iraq share a common information platform to support network centre operations (NCOs); and what innovations have been implemented to improve NCOs in Iraq since 2005.

Answer: Military information sharing between US and UK has improved since Operation Iraqi Freedom. In Iraq, information transfer was between national-only networks. In Afghanistan, UK land environment forces routinely work within the NATO ISAF information domain while keeping a smaller amount of national-only capability for information that is less readily shared with allies. The US have also taken up this approach, which means UK, US and other allies are routinely conducting operations using the same information domain.

Secondary information