• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Argentine Director of Military Intelligence, Naval Attaché Visit 4th Fleet

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS081217-05
Release Date: 12/17/2008 6:32:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Alan Gragg, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/ U.S. 4th Fleet Public Affairs

Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Alan Gragg, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/ U.S. 4th Fleet Public Affairs

MAYPORT, Fla. (NNS) -- Two distinguished Argentinian military leaders visited U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command (NAVSO) and U.S. 4th Fleet headquarters in Mayport Dec. 15.

Argentina's National Director of Military Strategic Intelligence Carlos Anibal Aguilar and Rear Adm. Jose Luis Perez Varela, naval attaché to the Argentine Embassy in Washington, met with Rear Adm. Joseph D. Kernan, NAVSO and 4th Fleet commander.

The purpose of the meeting was to orientate the two guests with NAVSO and 4th Fleet and to strengthen partner nation relationships. Visits such as this one also support the U.S. global maritime strategy by building working relationships at sea and improving interoperability between partner nation navies through face-to-face meetings.

"Whenever we have an opportunity to meet in person with our partner nation representatives to discuss our mutual goals and opportunities to collaborate, it is extremely beneficial and helps to strengthen our maritime partnerships and interoperability," said Kernan. "Our partners have a chance to ask questions, provide us with their perspective and we can discuss it with them face-to-face. This visit was very productive and I look forward to future engagements."

During their stay in Mayport, Aguilar and Varela visited USS Carney (DDG 64) for lunch and a brief tour of the Mayport-based guided-missile destroyer.

Varela and Kernan met previously in November during the UNITAS Gold 2009 Initial Planning Conference held in Mayport. Argentina is one of 10 countries set to take part in UNITAS Gold, the 50th iteration of the annual multinational maritime exercise series.

UNITAS Gold is scheduled to begin in late April 2009 off the coast of Mayport with participants from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, Mexico, Peru and the United States.

NAVSO, the Navy component command of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), oversees maritime operations throughout Latin America, including exercises and deployments, counter illicit trafficking support, and theater security cooperation events.

U.S. 4th Fleet is the numbered fleet assigned to NAVSO exercising operational control of U.S. Navy units temporally operating in the SOUTHCOM area of focus, which encompasses the Caribbean, Central and South America and surrounding waters.

For more news from Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/cusns/.