Cooperative Safeguard
The Exercise Cooperative Safeguard was held in Iceland July 25th - 27th. The exercise was confined to the southwestern corner of Iceland on the Reykjanes penisula. The participants of Cooperative Safeguard '97 brought a lot of equipment with them. Around 11 helicopters will be transported to Iceland to participate in the exrecise. Around 1000 people will participate in the exercise.
The exercise was to simulate responses after a simulated earthquake has shaken the southwest corner of Iceland and the Icelandic government has requested assistance from foreign countries to aid in the rescue efforts. The exercise included transport took place between July 19th and 31st, but the main field exercise took place July 25th - 27th.
This was the first NATO peace cooperation exercise and it was by far the largest exercise to be held in Iceland so far. The following countries sent teams to participate in the exercise: Austria, Belgia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Lettland, Lithuania, Norway, Polland, Rumania, Russia, Switzerland, Sweden, Checkland, Ukrainia and U.S.A. There will also be present representatives from the United Nations.
Around 500 of them were from Iceland, 100 from U.S.A. and the other 500 from the previously mentioned nations. The Icelandic participants were from various professions: rescue teams, police, fire brigade, hospital staff, Coast Guard and many more. Russia brought their own fully operational hospital and are going to airdrop it. This hospital included state of the art surgery and X-ray rooms. During the exercise there will be a need for a lot of "injured" people. That is 300 - 400 people that acted that they were injured for the rescue teams. The rescue operation went round the clock for those three days and everybody had a lot to do the whole time.
On 6 June 2000, one of the biggest Search-and-Rescue exercises - Cooperative Safeguard 2000 - started. Over 400 SAR specialists from 16 PfP and NATO countries came to the United States Air Force Base in Keflavik (Iceland). The Polish Navy ship ORP "WODNIK" arrived 7 June at the port in Reykjavik. The crew of the ship got ready for the operations of rescuing survivors of the cruise ship "MONTE CARLO" disaster. Altogether about 1000 people participated in the exercise.
The theme for Cooperative Safeguard 2000 was sea-to-land operations in a multi-national response environment. The scenario was a cruise liner/ferry in distress where the crew needs assistance on board, passengers and crew need to be transported to land where they are registered, attended to and arrangements made to transport them to back home. Cooperative Safeguard 2000 included: 3 day seminar, 7th -9th of June; Equipment display, 7th of June; STX day, 8th of June; 2 day LIVEX, 10th -11th of June; 1 day lesson learned (LL) session, 13th of June.
The seminar phase of the exercise the SAR specialists discussed circumstances and reasons for disasters at sea. The main objective of the 3-day seminar was to work out the rules for conducting international rescue operations. A group of the Polish SAR, naval aviation and medical officers participated in the seminar. The at sea phase of the exercise Cooperative Safeguard started on Saturday, 10 June. ORP "WODNIK" will depart for sea on Friday night. The main task for the Polish ship will be accepting onboard and providing the first aid to the survivors of the Monte Carlo cruise ship.
The exercise was set up with a number of events taking place simultaneously; some related, others not. These events were connected by a common thread that runs through the LIVEX, however, it is unlikely that there will be one continoues saga that mimics how events would unfold in real life. The reason being to give the field participants as much activity as possible during the two days. The purpose of the LIVEX is to provide international forces (military and non-military) and organizations an opportunity to work together. It is expected that all participants are trained in response procedures of their respective home countries, however, may not necessarily have had the chance to work with their neighboring countries or in other international settings. The actual setting of such an exercise as is planned here could be anywhere, and the goal is that the lessons learned are applicable anywhere in the world. However, for obvious reasons, numerous parameters of the LIVEX will have to adhere to the conditions in Iceland.
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