Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, Lt. Cmdr. Dowling, Nov. 6, 2007
Multi-National Force-Iraq
PRESS CONFERENCE: Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, Director, Multi-National Force - Iraq Communications Division
Lt. Cmdr. Keith Dowling, Commander, Multi-National Corps - Iraq Task Force Troy
DATE: November 6, 2007
TRANSCRIBED BY: SOS INTERNATIONAL, LTD.
PARTICIPANTS: Admiral Smith
REPORTERS: [First Name Unknown] Bryan (ph) from American Forces Press Service
Amit Paley from The Washington Post
Gina Chung from The Wall Street Journal
David Smith from The Observer Eric Schlegel from The Stars and Stripes
[Name Unknown] Al-Iraqiya TV
Rod Nordlund, Newsweek
REPORTERS 1-12
*REP1 = REPORTER 1
*INT = INTERPRETER
SMITH: Good afternoon. As-Salāmu `Alaykum. I’m pleased to be joined this afternoon by Lt. Cmdr. Keith Dowling of Task Force Troy. The unit responsible for explosive ordinance disposal under Multi-National Force…Corps - Iraq, rather. Keith and I would like to provide you an overview of the work that continues to…the work that goes on in Iraq to continue to remove dangerous military munitions and other explosive materials from throughout Iraq; what we refer to universally as caches. My remarks will address the overall cache situation in Iraq, detailing some of the larger discoveries found recently, and what this means for security forces and Iraqis. Keith will share insights into how Task Force Troy goes about its work in classification and disposal of munitions and provide details on the items that they have recovered that you see here in front of you. In the first ten months of 2007, coalition and Iraqi security forces have found and cleared 5,364 caches. That is twice the volume of material found in all of 2006—some 2,667 caches. This first slide gives a month-to-month comparison for 2006 and 2007. You will notice that starting in April when the majority of the surge forces had arrived in Iraq, the number of caches found spike considerably. And in the ensuing months, we’ve seen a steady increase. By way of definition, a cache is a source of supplies such as weapons, munitions, improvised explosive devices or IED components, that are concealed to facilitate the conduct of insurgency operations. Simply put, it’s the fuel that drives the insurgency that has led to the death and destruction witnessed here in Iraq for the past several years. We highlight caches because they are the primary source of weapons used against, to target coalition forces, Iraqi security forces and innocent Iraqi civilians. These caches consist of a range of munitions, home-made explosives and other items necessary to build improvised explosive devices and the highly lethal explosively-formed penetrators, conduct indirect fires, supply forces with small arms and ammunition, and support surveillance and communications. This includes rockets, mortars, mortar tubes, C-4 explosive, land mines, detonating cord, RPG or Rocket-Propelled Grenade launchers, grenades, copper disk, batteries, nitric acid, small arms, ammunition, TNT, blasting caps, timers, relays, and fuses. The increase in caches cleared and found can be attributed to many factors. I will outline a few of them by highlighting some of the provinces that have seen a significant increase in caches found and cleared in 2007. In Al Anbar, security forces doubled the number of caches found and cleared in 2007 from 1,217 to 2,525; making it the highest concentration of caches found anywhere in Iraq. For example, northwest of Fallujah on Saturday, the Iraqi Army uncovered one of the larger caches in recent memory. This slide outlines the various items they found. It includes over 1,000 mortar rounds, 278 of which were modified for IED use. There were also timers, timed fuses, blasting caps, and batteries; all of which are the key components of constructing IEDs. This was an incredibly lethal cache and it is a great credit to the Iraqi Army in locating and destroying its contents before the enemy had a chance to use it. The increasing effectiveness of the Iraqi security forces has led to many finds, such as the one in Fallujah, taking components used to make IEDs off the streets. In the last several weeks, Iraqi security forces have uncovered numerous caches in Balad, Baghdad, Kirkuk, Iskandiriyah, Baqubah, and Taji. Their efforts have, no doubt, helped lead to the decrease in IED explosions we are seeing across Iraq. Diyala Province, which has seen a dramatic four-fold increase of caches found and cleared over the last year from 165 to 529, has been a direct beneficiary of the surge in coalition forces. The surge has allowed the forces an opportunity to develop relationships with local citizens. Gaining their trust and confidence, these local citizens have partnered and contributed greatly to the increase in caches found, IEDs cleared, and insurgents detained. Last week in Al Anbar, coalition forces received 37 tips from Iraqi citizens. These 37 tips led to 25 caches, the clearing of 9 IEDs, and the detention of 11 insurgents. Iraqi-wide, security forces received, on average, 16,500 tips a month, many producing information leading to the location of hidden caches. In Sa`adiyah village last month, a local citizen led coalition forces to one of the largest caches of Explosively-Formed Penetrators or EFPs that we have found in Iraq to date. The find included more than 120 fully-assembled EFPs, more than 150 copper disks, 600 pounds of C-4 explosive, 100 mortar rounds, and 30 107-millimeter rockets. And on Wednesday, a citizen in Husayniyah led coalition forces to a building where explosively-formed penetrators and improved explosive devices were being constructed; basically an IED factory. These soldiers discovered a large cache of explosives including approximately 10 fully-assembled EFPs of various sizes including one of a 12-inch EFP—among the largest found here in Iraq, approximately 90 copper plates of various sizes, more than 200 pounds of C-4 explosive, and other explosive materials including TNT, and numerous other materials used in manufacturing EFPs. I’ll now pass the microphone to Cmdr. Dowling. Keith will explain some of the munitions seen here and the role his organization plays in classifying and destroying them. And then I’ll close out with…my full remarks with some general comments and observations. Keith. DOWLING: Thank you, Admiral. My name is Lt. Cmdr. Keith Dowling. I’m the officer in charge of the Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell, otherwise known as CEXC. We’re part of Task Force Troy, Combined Joint Task Force Troy, who handles explosive ordinance disposal as well as counter-IED operations throughout the Iraqi theater of operations. I have two teams that deploy to conduct post- blast investigations and site exploitation. Those teams are comprised of UK and Australian ammunition technical officers as well as FBI and ATF agents. We deploy on a very small number of cases, however, and I really think we need to give credit to the EOD forces—all the coalition forces that are out there—EOD techs that render those areas safe and then the WIT teams, Weapon Intelligence Teams, that go in afterwards and collect the evidence and send that all to CEXC for further exploitation. What you’re looking at here is just a small sample of what’s been uncovered over the past 20 days, and I do say a relatively small number of ordinance items that we brought here today for you to look at. I’ll briefly touch on these and I’ll be able to answer any questions that you have afterwards. We have various sized mortars; 60 millimeter, 81 millimeter, and 120 millimeter mortars. We have rockets; 107 millimeter rockets. I also brought this improvised rocket launcher which can shoot up to 20 rockets, not all at the same time, but virtually simultaneously-timed so they go off one right after the other. These are modified when they’re put in these tubes with a washing machine timer and a power supply, which is a battery. The washing machine timer is wound, when the time expires it completes the electrical connection and sends power to the rocket motor, initiates the propellant, and sends the rocket towards its target. I also brought along some RPGs that have been recovered, Rocket-Propelled Grenades. Along with some C-4. We had a large quantity of C-4 from the recent caches that we found. And some EFPs, or Explosively-Formed Penetrators, or projectiles, you’ll hear it mentioned either way. The significance here with the C-4 is that is usually the primary fill for our explosively- formed penetrators. These can be set off various different ways. They can be set off command wire so that you can target a specific vehicle within a convoy. They can also be set off by using what’s called a passive infrared device and I actually brought this one from CEXC today. This is currently evidence that we’re in the process of exploiting. Passive infrared looks for a heat source such as an engine block and once that heat source is determined significant enough, it will trigger the EFP to fire. We see the explosively-formed penetrators in various different sizes, all the way from three inches all the way up to twelve-inch liners. And when I say a liner, this copper portion in the front here is the liner. EFP is pretty much comprised of a liner within a body with a retaining ring that holds the liner in place and what we call a base plate. It’s also filled with explosives. The most common form of explosive is the C-4 that you see next to the EFPs. Once again, we have some larger size liners. We also uncovered a lot of large, shaped charges. This is a shaped charge you’d stick within an explosively-formed penetrator. Both have a specific purpose. Both can be extremely lethal. This is one of the larger shaped chargers that we’ve found in theater with a twelve-inch diameter. And that is really the array that I brought here today to display. Like I said, at the end I’ll answer any questions that you may have regarding those ammunitions. Admiral?
SMITH: Thank you, Keith. The increasing effectiveness of Iraqi security forces, the surge, and cooperation with Iraqi citizens have all contributed to the increased numbers of caches found and cleared. The clearing of these caches has helped contribute to the downward trends we are seeing in IED explosions and indirect fire, also known as IDF. This slide depicts the decrease in IED explosions. Notice that IED attacks in October are in line with numbers last seen in September, 2004. Overall, IED attacks have decreased by 50% since the start of the surge. We also see the same trend in regards to indirect fire incidents which include such things as mortar and rocket attacks. Notice, again, the downward trend since the start of the surge in June. Next slide please. You can see the downward trend in June, 07 into October, 2000 [sic], a dramatic drop, some 50%. Let me turn to the source of much of these caches we’ve found. We have spoken previously of Iran’s malign influence here in Iraq through supplying terrorists and criminals with rockets and EFPs. The cache finds mentioned and much of the munitions here before you originated in Iran. However, I want to point out that two of the most recent, large EFP cache finds we talked about earlier in this brief, do not appear to contain components that arrived prior to Iran’s commitment to Iraq to stop arming, funding, and training extremists. Let me repeat that. The EFPs we have found that I mentioned here in today’s brief, do not appear to have been…arrived in Iraq after Iraq…the Iranians had made their pledge to stop arming, funding, and training extremists. We hope in the coming weeks and months to confirm that Iran has, indeed, honored its pledge through further verification that the flow of munitions and other lethal aid has, indeed, stopped. We also expect another round of trilateral working group talks with representatives of Iraq, Iran, and the U.S. to further examine security issues in Iraq. I would note it is also our intent to release nine Iranians currently held in custody in the near future. These individuals have been assessed to be of no continuing value, nor do they pose a further threat to the Iraqis’ security. Two of them were detained in Erbil in January of this year. While the trends we are seeing in the clearing of caches in 2007 are encouraging, we reiterate that enumerable challenges remain in Iraq. Coalition forces will continue to work with our Iraqi partners as we move to sustainable security, a self-sustaining economy, and viable local, regional, and national governments. And with that, we’d be happy to take your questions. Sir.
REP1 I am [unintelligible] Bryan from AFP. Could you detail the people you…the Iranians you are going to release? Two were arrested in Erbil in January...
SMITH: Correct.
BRYAN: And the others, could you detail them…among them the so-called Kurdish force officer arrested in Sulaimaniya?
SMITH: In the coming days we’ll have more information regarding these nine individuals. At the present time, two of those are from the Erbil, five that were detained in January of this year. The other seven were detained at various times in the last several years and, again, we’ll provide more detail when the actual decision is made and the actual release has occurred. Please. Sorry, right in front, please.
REP2: Hi. Amit Paley from the Washington Post. Two questions. One, can you talk a little bit about the timing of when you think the release is going to take place? And, second, can you discuss a little bit what you have seen that leads you to believe that the components you have found were…did not come from Iran since the pledge was made?
SMITH: Okay, good. The timing of the release; we began the deliberative process today of notifying various partners. Iraq, of course, has been notified, the American government, and others. And we’ll begin the process of working through the necessary paperwork and so forth. So I would say in the coming days as the best I could define for you when that release will take place. As to the timing, there’s various intelligence as well as forensic means by which we’re using and an interagency partnership as well to make these kinds of determinations. The decision is as best we can make it. It is our best judgment that these particular EFPs that we defined in the most recent large cache finds do not appear to have arrived here in Iraq after those pledges were made. And, again, that’s our assessment as we understand it today. And we also look for other signs, other indications that, in fact, Iran isn’t living up to its pledge [unintelligible] to security here in Iraq. Yes, sir.
REP3: Hi. J.J. Sutherland, National Public Radio. Two questions. First of all, are the EFPs coming from elsewhere or are they being made here now? Is that part of the problem? And also, we’ve had lulls before in activity over the years. What makes you think this one is significantly different?
SMITH: Regarding manufacture, we…without going into great detail as to how we know, but we do know precisely that the EFP manufacturing appears to be by single-source or at least single-sources that are all linked together. And I won’t indicate necessarily the location. Other than…again, the origination of the EFPs, we believe, are in Iran. As to the second question, clearly we are of two months or three months in some cases or in some cases, if you look at the charts here, on very sustained trends. And as I mentioned at the end of my remarks, it’s far too early to call this a statistically significant trend. We have work to do, yesterday, the last couple of days as you’ve seen. The enemy has a vote. There’s still much danger out there. We’ve lost five soldiers yesterday in two unfortunate incidents both involving, we believe, IEDs. And so the dangers exist to not only our coalition forces but also to Iraqis. And we have a great deal of work left to do. Yes, ma’am.
REP4: Hi. Gina Chung, Wall Street Journal. I also have two questions. One, it seems that the concerned citizens groups have been effective in terms of helping the military find some of these caches but I’ve also heard some concern, both from American and Iraqi security forces, about how sustainable that effort is as well in terms of cash incentives or other incentives being given to these groups and once that runs out or starts slowing down that, perhaps, they won’t be as motivated to help find some of these caches and other help that they’ve been providing. And then my second question is, just in terms of the caches that have been found recently, if you’ve seen in any changes in terms of level of sophistication or new items or items that have been seen in the past but aren’t being seen anymore?
SMITH: I’ll let Keith address the second question but to your first question, as I’ve mentioned from this podium before, the concerned local citizen efforts are meant to be a short-term bridging function. The long-term stability of Iraq is with the Iraqi security forces, both its police and its Army. Those concerned local citizens are a bridge to that activity in many locations where there are insufficient levels of permanent security forces. Of the 70,000 currently registered concerned local citizens, those that are participating in an active program, only about 20,000 have indicated an interest to augment or transition into an Iraqi security force position be it police or Army. So it’s part of the building block process that the Iraq…and we’ve also briefed here last week with Gen. Hussein regarding the national police and its continuing efforts to grow its current 30,000 force steadily each month. Its all part of the long-term process that, again, varies across the country. It’s not even, clearly, across the country but we are seeing a sustained interest by citizens to step up and to participate in some way in their neighborhoods be it a neighborhood watch or something along those lines and be that transition, be that bridge, until sufficient security can be on the ground and support their needs. Yes, sir.
REP5: David Smith…
SMITH: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t get the second part of your question, did we? On the trends we’re seeing. Keith, I’m sorry, jump up. I’m sorry.
DOWLING: Yes, we saw nothing new in waves of sophistication; nothing that would indicate a new or emerging threat. It was a pretty standard cache find, but a significant cache find. Thank you.
SMITH: One note on that subject, clearly from 2006-2007 there have been some changes in the types of ordinance we’re finding in caches; the length of time, perhaps, caches have been in a location. I think you’ve also seen the reporting we’ve been fairly transparent in telling you everything we know about the caches. But you’ve seen everything from false walls in homes, false panels in floors, buried munitions— deeply buried in some cases—and shelters, both wooden structures and concrete and man-made or natural structures rather…caves. And in all those instances there is a different story, obviously, associated with all of it. But what we are seeing obviously is, I think, a more determined effort on the part of citizens to identify, perhaps, caches that have been in locations for a lengthy period of time. For instance, in Al Anbar, obviously, there has been a limited…or there has been a significantly decreased level of threat there for some time now. And, therefore, you would surmise that the caches we’re finding there have been in place for some time. It’s likely due to the fact that citizens are becoming more comfortable with working with Iraqi security forces— because many of these were found by Iraqi security forces— or even the coalition, to help identify those caches that had been in those regions or areas for some time. But, again, just an anecdotal observation; nothing that we could pin down to scientifically. But that’s our best judgment at this time. And yes, sir. I’m sorry I cut you off.
D. SMITH: David Smith of The Observer. What would be your explanation for the reasons why there has been this decline in IED attacks and indirect fire? And, secondly, could you just sort of give us the overall picture regarding Iranian interference in the past; have you literally found weapons that you know came from there? And how do you assess the situation now? It sounds like you’re probably sort of cautiously optimistic.
SMITH: Well, on the first point, we clearly assess the drops in both the indirect fires and the improvised explosive device to several factors. No single factor probably dominates. But one clearly dominates is the fact that we have taken, this year alone, twice the number of cache finds. Last year we were finding caches with fewer…not…I would say it this way. This year we’re finding caches with more items in each individual cache. Last year you would find a cache and you might find several dozen items. We’re now finding, as you see indicated in a couple of these slides, hundreds, if not thousands of individual items being stored in one location so significant sized caches. That’s the significant degradation of the enemy’s ability to conduct both indirect fires and produce and deploy improvised explosive devices. So that’s factor number one. Factor two, clearly, has been our surge of operations. We have taken down much of the network and networks that exist to support the development, exploitation, employment of these weapons. There is some science to this; there is some expertise. They are improvised and yet, it does take, as Keith pointed out, using sophisticated technology such as infrared, wiring that together with an explosively-formed penetrator, precisely placing it in the right location to precisely do the damage you want to do, does require training and does require a certain level of skill. As we’ve gone after that training and the skill levels amongst the enemy, we’ve degraded their capability. And lastly, I think, it’s because the local citizens have, again, stood up and participated in the process of bringing down the level of violence in this country to a great extent. And they’re pointing out where these individuals live, where they operate from and now, more importantly, where they store these deadly and lethal munitions. So I think those are factors that I would attribute to the drop. And clearly there’s some other indicators associated with…Muqtada al-Sadr has pledged his individuals, his followers, to cease-fire. Very encouraging. Honestly, there are still many individuals who have dishonored Muqtada al-Sadr and continue to conduct criminal activities. And you’ve heard from this podium and elsewhere our discussions about our activities against those individuals. Al Qaeda remains a threat. As I’ve pointed out in the last couple of days, we’ve had some incidents that we can attribute to Al Qaeda-like activity for which they clearly have, continue to have lethal capacity to conduct their operations. So we’ve got work to do. But the trends are going in the right direction. Thanks for the question. Yes, sir.
REP6: Eric Schlegel with The Stars and Stripes. You’ve mentioned that a lot of this is attributable to the increased local cooperation and the surge as well. How much of these increased finds of caches are attributable to increased supply coming in from other areas and other countries?
SMITH: I guess I can also get back to Dave…is that a question you…in terms of supply, we currently have had our eyes set on where the sources are coming in from. We’ve, again, announced from up here on multiple occasions and, obviously, identified for you today. As you come up later you’ll see the nomenclature on much of this is Iranian. It is a world market out there; we will admit to that in the sense that many of these munitions, one can purchase—literally—off the Internet. That said, much of this you can’t. And there’s, obviously, the sourcing of that material can be done through various criminal and/or state-sponsored activities. And we have assessed in the past that Iran had been involved in state-sponsorship of the delivery of munitions into Iraq. They have said that they did not and they claim that they will support anything that’s coming out of Iran to stop that activity from occurring. And we look forward to that excellence in terms of their performance in making that happen. But we do assess that Iran has been a principal factor in supplying a great deal of the munitions used by…especially the special groups here in Iraq. As far as other regional neighbors; less so, I think, except that’s where a lot of the personnel come from. Again, which end up being the…really the feeding mechanism to be the individuals that have the qualifications to produce the bombs, to strap the bombs on themselves and to become suicide-bombers. So it’s employment and also the actual capability of putting together this equipment in its raw form, if you will, into something that’s capable of killing innocents. Yes, sir.
REP7: Asks question in Arabic.
INT: Question from Radio [Unintelligible]. The first question: Have you found any radiating material in the caches you found? Second question is actually about the weapons… weapon caching, the American Army relies on a technique of sectarian division in Buqa . Why is this happening in Buqa Prison? And we also heard that there were clashes inside the prison, or inside these prisons, and there were some death casualty…death incidents among the detainees. How many of the detainees have been killed? Do you have any information regarding this?
SMITH: John, could you help me with the first question, please?
INT: The first question was during the finding of the caches, have you ever found some infrared weapons or something…radioactive weapons?
SMITH: Oh, radioactive. Different questions. Again, I think your question is in this…in all the caches that we’ve found, did we ever find any radioactive material or radioactive weapons in the course of those. I’m not aware of any having been reported. I’ll leave it at that. If there has been, I’m unaware of that. And your second question, did it deal with Buqa, was it?
INT: Yeah. The second question was about the prison in Buqa. There is a lot of tension between Shi’a and Sunni prisoners and Radio [Unintelligible] have heard some report that there is fighting between prisoners that led to the death of some prisoners because of being Sunni or Shi’a. What do you have to say about that?
SMITH: Yeah. I think it’s a pretty general question. If there’s a specific incident you’re referring to, I’m not…I can address that with you separately. I think you’ll find if you get an opportunity to really sit down with the folks that manage our detainee affairs operations, that the programs that are now put in place has reduced a great deal of that kind of unnecessary violence. And, by and part, by and large it’s because individuals are now actively involved in education and have an opportunity through vo-tech, or job training programs, to do something with their life. As we saw recently during the Ramadan period where over 300 individuals were released from detention, those were all individuals who had had an opportunity to really demonstrate that they’d thought of something more in life than just killing other humans…other citizens. And they’d committed themselves to both an educational and a jobs-based development. And many of them cited, I think, for the media when they were released, how much they’d gained in that opportunity. So perhaps in the past, again, an incident—I don’t know which one you’re talking about—but I think we’ve made great strides in our opportunities we’re making for the detainees to make something of themselves. Now, that said, there are certainly several detainees at Buqa and elsewhere who are, I would say, irreconcilable. They choose to remain very much polarized from the mainstream population inside the detention facilities. They’ve refused to participate in any constructive way. And I would suspect they’re looking to malign the activities there and to continue to probably wreak the kind of hatred that was outside the wire, inside the wire. But, again, specific…I don’t have any details for you but I’d be happy to talk to you later if you can provide some detail. Next question, please. Sir.
REP8: Asks question in Arabic. INT: [Unintelligible] Al-Iraqiya TV. Iran backs terrorism. What is your stance from Iran and why doesn’t the American forces seal the Iranian-Iraqi border? Why haven’t you controlled the Iranian-Iraqi border if you’ve accused Iran of backing terrorism.
SMITH: The fact is there’s a great deal of control along the Iraqi-Iranian border but, as you know, it is a very, very expansive border. And Iran…Iraq’s capacity and the coalition force’s capacity to help Iraq monitor the entire length of that border is emerging and evolving. In fact, there’s been several additional outposts that have been developed. There’s been some additional sort of semi-permanent camp structures developed for that very, very purpose. The border control operations that the Iraqi’s are challenged with are extensive. When you consider the Syrian border, and the Iranian border in particular, as being expansive and very porous and very difficult to…for those of you who’ve, obviously, lived here all your lives, you know that. I don’t need to tell you how difficult it is in the desert to maintain control over that expansive area. But the Iraqi’s are committed to identifying the key crossing points, working through very traditional border-crossing procedures with identification cards and other biometrics, as well as equipment that allows us to inspect and scan large cargo and so forth to ensure that illicit weapons and other things are not entering Iraq. All that is developing and very promising in the years to come. Good question though. Thank you. Any other questions? Sir, please.
REP9: Rod Nordlund, Newsweek. What proportion of the cache finds recently have been from concerned citizens’ tips versus intelligence of your own.
SMITH: Yeah. In fact, we’re doing a major study in the next month or so that’s going to really dig in to all the little nuanced aspects of the cache piece. And that’s one of them. In fact, coming to this brief, I had hoped to provide something like that for you and that’s why I anecdotally talked about the most recent week in Anbar as just an example of the 37 tips resulted in 25 cache finds and then 9 IEDs, which are separate from the caches by the way, so a total of 34 out of 37. But that’s just an anecdotal one week snapshot. We hope, perhaps, in another month or so, maybe two months, to really get into a better understanding of what we’re seeing in all kinds of dimensions relative to caches. This is an important thing to understand because one, we know that Iraq has, because of its past in terms of its large numbers of stockpiled weapons, great potential for this to still be out there in large numbers yet to be found. And so I think we’ve got a lot of work to do in the years to come. It’s probably better for us to spend time understanding the past couple of years, learn from that, and then move forward as we support the Iraqis in this long-term effort to clean up munitions on…out there in Iraq. And again, it will be a long-term effort on the part of the Iraqis. And their capacity to do this has been increased with the support of gentlemen like Mr. Dowling and his team, working partners with the Iraqi explosive ordinance teams. Any other questions?
REP10: Two questions. One, can you go over the markings that show that these are from Iran you said are on there? And, two, of the weapons that you’ve found, how much of them are from previous stockpiles of the Iraqi Army under the previous regime?
SMITH: Go ahead.
DOWLING: I can tell you that EOD, our profession, Explosive Ordinance Disposal, we go through about a year-and-a-half of training and it is just so that we can identify different types of ordinance and country of origin. It’s based on specific measurements, specific design information. And a lot of that is also based on markings that I really am not at liberty to discuss. But it is a science; and the science is perfected. And we are able to tell country of origin from that information.
REP10: Is there anything you can say? Anything you can say that shows why you believe they’re coming from Iran?
DOWLING: I can tell you tail fins, for one, on the mortars is one indicator that is consistent with Iranian ordinance. But really it is many things in conjunction with one another that is…gives us the ability to determine its origin.
SMITH: Sometimes it’s the fusing that’s unique to a manufacturer only in Iran. Sometimes the nomenclature that, obviously, it could…you could argue will…anyone could mark that nomenclature. But there’s lot numbers and sequences and we’re aware of that kind of activity. There’s obviously forensics you can do on explosive materials and the origin of C-4 as an example. You could hold up this C-4 and, regardless of what’s marked, you could determine whether it was made in the U.S. or made somewhere else in the world. And again, that’s the kind of detailed forensics that the interagency, partnering with their team here, can do. Thank you.
REP11: And on the issue of how much of the weapons that you found have come from under Saddam Hussein’s regime and from the Iraqi Army.
DOWLING: Yeah. I don’t think we have any pictures here of some of the really old stuff. In fact, there was one here earlier that sort of showed the old, you know, larger aircraft ordinance. That kind of thing. As the team goes out, they’ll find just stockpiles that somebody piled up; air- dropped weapons that they can remove the explosive material as it was used in kind. I don’t know if we have a percentage. Again, I think that’s the kind of analysis we’re looking at. But a lot of the real lethality comes from the components being shown here where you take C-4 that’s fresh. This…in fact, much of this was made in 2007. You marry that up with technology we know has been recently developed and in place to produce these copper disks. There’s nothing fancy about that tube. That’s just a piece of PVC pipe that you could go buy at a hardware store. And you pack that along with some technology— wiring, and timers, and infrareds—and you can make a device. So you don’t need Saddam-era munitions to wreak the havoc we’re talking about. But we do find, clearly, a lot of old rounds, small ammunition rounds, and that kind of thing. Still some light weapons that are from that era. Certainly.
SMITH: I had mentioned earlier relative to the sponsorship for the weapons coming across from Iran and I used the term state-sponsored. And I want to make sure you’re clear on that. We had said, again, from this podium that we certainly understand that the Iraqi…Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Kuds Force is the key component within the Iranian government that supports this activity inside Iran. We’ve said that time and time again from this podium. We’ve also said that we do believe that Iranian leadership is aware of the activities of the ROGC so that’s the link I want to make sure I make clear. And I think there’s a question there.
REP12: Asks question off microphone.
SMITH: I’ll repeat the question. The question was, “What rewards do we offer to concerned local citizens for activity associated with tips?”
It…literally there’s a…almost a formula, if you will, depending on what the tip is, there’ll be a remuneration for that. I don’t have that in front of me but I’ll be happy to try to get that for you and we’ll pass it on if you make sure one of our guys has your card and we’ll give you a call back. But, again, across the…Iraq, each of the commanders has a fund available to them to be able to support this kind of activity. In fact, I saw some interesting reporting the other day where an area that was problematic for a particular commander, it is an area of tall reeds and they were growing up around a culvert where they knew that the enemy would potentially hide these kind of weapons, they paid these individuals to help clear that area. So we do that kind of effort. We also then will work with individuals, again on the tips, to be able to get them interested in participating. It helps, I think, to be able to reward these individuals for the courage and the bravery that it often takes to do that. But I’ll get you the details afterwards, please. Well, thank you very much. We, believe it or not, we’re going to do this again tomorrow. We’ve got some more discussion to have on another key topic and we’ll be looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Thank you. The slides will be up on the Web site along with all this material will be posted on the Web site in a few hours.
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