'The Bad Guys Are Getting Smarter'

With Billions More Dollars, U.S. Military Struggles To 'Defeat' Iraq's IEDs

(AP)  Congressional auditors, meanwhile, are reviewing JIEDDO's operations, and the Pentagon itself this year formed an outside task force to monitor the organization.

At JIEDDO's offices outside Washington, the frustration sometimes lies in getting its accomplishments recognized.

"In regards to defeating the device, we have done a fantastic job," said Army Col. Michael Mahoney, operations chief for the counter-IED organization. "The enemy is required to put out a lot more IEDs today to achieve a casualty than he had to do previously."

The experts estimate half the IEDs planted in Iraq are now detected and disarmed. To achieve that, JIEDDO has helped deploy an arsenal of tools: add-on kits to "up-armor" Army and Marine Humvee vehicles; small camera-equipped blimps and unmanned aerial vehicles to spot bomb-planting activity; "Warlock" frequency jammers aboard vehicles; bomb-disposal robots; bomb-sniffing dogs.

Out on Iraq's roads, one sees countless "Rhinos" — spindly arms extending far in front of Humvees' bumpers, bearing "hot boxes" whose heat prematurely trips IEDs' infrared detonation sensors. By October, the anti-IED group will test another innovation: advanced ground-penetrating radar to detect deeply-buried explosives.

Such technology was on display in June at what was billed as an IED Expo in Fayetteville, N.C., where 75 vendors sought to sell military customers products ranging from surveillance cameras-on-a-pole to MRAP vehicles.

In the end, however, "technologically there is a limit as to what you can achieve," Mahoney said. "The next piece is, how are you doing at attacking that network, going after the emplacer, the builder, the supplier?"

Those networks are evolving, finding new detonation techniques, new sources and ways to assemble explosives, to join the array of artillery shells lashed together, propane tanks stuffed with explosives, old antitank mines that they've been using. Last month, U.S. troops found an IED fashioned to look like a section of roadside curb.

The deadliest evolution has been toward use of "EFPs," explosively formed penetrators, devices that fire semi-molten slugs of metal that penetrate thick armor. The penetrators accounted for roughly 5 percent of IED attacks in July, but for 30 percent of U.S. combat deaths, said JIEDDO spokeswoman Christine Devries.

Although both Sunni Muslim insurgents and Shiite militias have used IEDs against American forces, the U.S. military says the sophisticated EFPs are more commonly deployed by Shiite groups that, it claims, obtain them from Iran.

The IED evolution sometimes goes in reverse. Because of the success of frequency-jamming from aircraft and ground vehicles, the insurgents' use of radio-controlled detonation has dropped since early 2006 from 60 percent of IEDs to 15 percent, said a knowledgable U.S. officer in the region. The bombers have instead reverted to wire detonation.

"It's sort of gone in a circle," said Mahoney.

It's a circle that demonstrates what may be an open-ended ability of Iraqi IED-makers to keep the world's most powerful military off balance.

In a National Defense University research paper, Mahoney's predecessor at the Joint IED Defeat Organization concludes the IED is here to stay, in a looming "Long War" against foes beyond Iraq. As for the Iraqi foe, Col. Bill Adamson writes that he "proved to be quick learning and innovative." And as for JIEDDO, he says its efforts "are not producing the effects desired."

[v_1618]

IT''S A SHAME THE MEDIA IS PRESSING THIS STATEMENTS . FROM A FASCIST REGIME. IN FAVOR OF THE REAL BAD GUYS...

[patriotic9]

Go to

www.memri.org

click on Islamist websites monitor project

go to

Islamist website monitor #17

click on the video link under the heading of

"Islamist video shows Bombings in Iraq"

According to Pentagon, there are One thousand attacks per week against our troops in Iraq which means more then One hundred and Fourty attacks per day. If we assume that only one soldier per attack gets killed by an UNSEEN ENEMY who is using sophisticated IEDs, the number of soldiers dying in Iraq is more then One hundred and fourty per day, one thousand per week and four thousands per month.

If somebody thinks that our government is not hiding the truth, check out how many attacks out of those more then One hundred and fourty attacks were reported in the news today.


Bush''s policies have hurt United States big time. It seems like next terrorist attack is planned at the time when we''ll be Militarily and Finanacially bankrupt in Iraq.

[cfin5]

I think it''s about time to play the same game the Syrians and Iranians want to play. For every IED detonation, "up''em" with a tomahawk sent to "special targets" in Damascus and Tehran. Let them decide the timing of our pulling the trigger on those birdies.

[mo005]

j-whitman: I ment is really a Giulini,,, a cross dresser

[mo005]

j-whitman: Is he really, I hadn''t heard that one.???

[mbcsmith]

Congressional approval ratings are at 18% according to the latest gallup poll, the lowest in the history of gallup polling. The LIBS just don''t get it. Must be Bush''s fault.

[feelfree1]

Re: "The Bad Guys Are Getting Smarter"

And simultaneously, our military leaders appear to be growing ever-dumber.

Get out of Iraq!

www.ipetitions.com/petition/OutNow

[j-whitman]

mcapek -- Think about it,,, General casey says our troops need 18 months at home for training, we need to double the size of our military to get the job done & provide adaquate security.
... In WW2 we had the troop numbers & in post occupation Berlin we still had to mount a bar on the front of jeeps to clear piano wire strung accross the roads..

[feelfree1]

Re: "...the U.S. military says the sophisticated EFPs are more commonly deployed by Shiite groups that, it claims, obtain them from Iran."

Of course, they have not provided any compelling support for this claim, because it is most likely false.

The U.S. military always has to come up with idiotic acronyms to describe things, like "IED''s" and "EFP''s". These are "bombs" to anyone that does not feel compelled to put an idiot spin on it, and they will keep right on killing U.S. soldiers for as long as the disgraceful and illegal invasion of Iraq continues.

We need to seriously start thinking about liquidating petro-terrorist organizations like Exxon-Mobile and BP, along with other war profiteering corporations like Blackwater, Halliburton, and Bechtel, and use the proceeds to help cover the costs of the illegal war, for rebuilding costs, and for reparations.

The financial bill for this shameful debacle is gigantic, and we have only begun to pay it- with borrowed money no less.

The cost in dignity and honor is even greater, and we will probably never be able to repay it. The best that we can do is to offer a sincere apology, and to make sure that those who are most responsible for this catastrophe are brought to trial.

[mcapek]

"IED is just another word for mine. How can the US military be unprepared for land mines?"
...so, are you suggesting that the USA military should clear every road in Iraq every 15 minutes, or so? how long does it take to place one of these devices? its great to hear from you civilian "experts"