Unofficial CENTCOM Map (courtesy of The Atlantic)

TAMPA, FL - Sources at United States Central Command revealed today that less than half of the officers assigned to the command could correctly identify ten or more of the twenty-two countries in the command’s area of responsibility.

“Of course we’re concerned about this,” said Colonel Albert Hawkins, CENTCOM’s Chief of Training. “I mean you can’t expect an officer to properly plan and execute an invasion of a foreign country if he can’t point to it on a map.”

The officers were given a map of the CENTCOM AOR with nothing but the national borders outlined and asked to fill in the names of the countries. While most did well in identifying Iraq (82%) and Afghanistan (81%) fewer were able to properly identify Iran, Qatar and Kuwait (77%, 73% and 69% respectively). Just over half the officers were able to identify the remainder of the Gulf nations except Oman, which a full third identified as “Brunei.”