Twenty students graduated from the International Maritime Intelligence Course (IMIC) at Information Warfare Training Command (IWTC) San Diego, Sept. 28. 

Students from Bulgaria, Georgia, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Turkey attended the class.

IMIC is an unclassified course designed to provide foundational intelligence training to international junior officers in the equivalent paygrades of O1-O4.  Upon completion, trainees are able to provide intelligence support to naval operations and planning in both afloat and ashore environments. Additionally, the U.S. State Department coordinates with IWTC San Diego to highlight American culture, via fieldtrips around Southern California during the students’ time in the U.S.

“All countries have the same needs for intelligence information, this class helped better understand how to use the information to better support our operations” said Cmdr. Giorgi Goguadze of the Georgian Coast Guard.  “The class also helped increase awareness of certain problem sets and how to better approach them.”

“The course established a new standard of knowledge to better support intelligence collection and analysis which will, in the end, better support my commander,” shared Chief Inspector Purmanund Bhoopendranath, of Mauritius’s National Coast Guard.  “The course length was perfect and provided a level of information that all the students were able to understand.  The tours provided the class the ability to see American culture and showed the class how welcoming America truly is.”

More than 25 students, primarily international intelligence officers, graduate from the three-week course each year.

“This convene was one of the most diverse groups we've ever had with students from 10 countries or, maybe more notably, three different continents” remarked Lt. Joseph Chua, who instructs the course.  “I think the students were able to learn a lot from the wide array of backgrounds and perspectives.”

IWTC San Diego, as part of the Center for Information Warfare Training, provides a continuum of training to Navy and joint service personnel that prepares them to conduct information warfare across the full spectrum of military operations.

For more news from Center for Information Warfare Training organization, visit http://www.navy.mil/, http://www.netc.navy.mil/centers/ciwt/, http://www.facebook.com/NavyCIWT/, or http://www.twitter.com/NavyCIWT/.

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