Gannett News Service March 18, 2007
Troops make gains against IEDs
By John Yaukey
WASHINGTON — American troops are becoming expert in finding, disarming and preventing the construction of the infamous roadside bombs that have become the scourge of Iraq for U.S. forces.
Despite the enemy deploying twice as many roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, called IEDs, as a year ago, casualties have remained steady.
One in five roadside bomb incidents results in a detonation that kills or wounds U.S. forces, according to the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization. Roughly one in nine of the casualties is fatal.
“That strikes me as a success story,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a widely cited source of defense analysis. “It’s hardly a success for the people killed or their families. But the number of IEDs required to kill an American soldier has gotten much higher. It could be a lot worse — a heck of a lot worse.”
At the same time, these homemade weapons are becoming more lethal. The most deadly type, known as explosively formed penetrators, account for only a small percentage of all roadside bombs but a “very large” percentage of U.S. troops killed, according to Pentagon officials who would not provide specific numbers.
The severity of the roadside bomb problem and the recent success in at least keeping it from pushing casualties even higher comes as the Pentagon asks for about $4.5 billion for its roadside bomb organization. By the end of fiscal 2007, the Pentagon will have spent about $10 billion trying to thwart roadside bombs.
These homemade explosives are the most lethal weapons used against U.S. forces in Iraq. They have accounted for as much as 75 percent of the fatalities in any one month, according the Iraq Index, a frequently updated series of databases maintained by the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution. So far, this month, roadside bombs account for 87 percent of U.S. troop fatalities. More than 1,170 of the nearly 3,200 U.S. troops who have died in the war so far were killed by these bombs.
Roadside bombs can be as simple as a 155 mm shell detonated by cell phone or as complex as the deadly penetrators, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates said can be capable of ripping through a 22-ton Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
The roadside bomb plague has given rise to a bomb-conscious culture in the Marines and Army, defense official said.
It permeates everything from training and cultural education to vehicle formation procedures, basic tactics and technology development.
“The whole Department of Defense is as highly motivated as an organization can be to try and figure out a way to get around these (bombs),” Gates recently told lawmakers.
The most recent tactical shift has been to emphasize going after what defense officials call “the networks” — the supply lines, facilities and finances of the bomb-makers, who are getting help from sources in Iran, White House and Pentagon officials have said.
“This is where we see winning the fight,” said Christine DeVries, spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s IED organization.
Thus, intelligence has become another critically important part of the plan. Tips from Iraqis about hidden bombs have more than doubled since September, jumping from 4,252 that month to 10,070 in January, the last month for which the Pentagon released numbers.
Still, senior defense officials voice frustration that despite the improving intelligence, technology and other components of their comprehensive strategy, bomb-makers still manage to remain some of the most dangerous people in Iraq.
As soon as U.S. troops developed an eye for spotting the wires used to detonate roadside bombs, the enemy started using remote-control detonators.
That prompted the Pentagon to deploy signal jammers. So the enemy returned to wire detonators.
As the Pentagon has been adding armor to Humvees, the enemy has been building more powerful bombs.
When it became apparent roadside bombs had become the weapons of choice, the Pentagon responded with helicopters. In 2005, U.S. troops flew 240,000 hours in helicopters. In 2006, that figure reached 334,000, and it’s expected to hit 400,000 in 2007.
Again, it appears, the enemy has responded.
Since Jan. 20, eight helicopters have been downed, included three UH-60 Black Hawks, the Army’s premier front-line helicopter.
At a recent congressional hearing, Gates lamented, “We find one way of trying to thwart their efforts — they find a technology or a new way of going about their business.”
© Copyright 2007, Gannett News Service
