Posted on: Monday, June 20, 2005

Military takes aim at tool of insurgents

Los Angeles Times

FORT IRWIN, Calif. — More than 200 military engineers packed grandstands on a hill in the heart of this desert combat training center on Wednesday to witness the destructive power of the enemy's primary weapon in Iraq: crude bombs built with cell phones and old artillery rounds.

The choreographed demolitions of a 5-ton truck, a sedan and a manikin "suicide bomber" were intended to spur new approaches for combating the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, as they are known in military parlance.

The devices are the single biggest killers of coalition forces in Iraq, causing about half of the U.S. military deaths in Iraq this year, officials said.

In a country strewn with huge ordnance caches — and a determined insurgency — the devices probably will remain a significant threat for years to come, officials said.

"This is a significant weapon and it poses a major challenge for U.S. forces," said Army Brig. Gen. Robert W. Cone, Fort Irwin's commanding officer. "And as soon as we get good at dealing with them, the enemy adapts to our strategies."

The Army's five-day "IED Defeat Seminar" last week hoped to break that cycle by providing military engineers from across the nation a look at how the devices are used and the threat they pose.

As the war in Iraq continues, improvised explosive devices are becoming more lethal, military officials acknowledged, and are targeting not only U.S. soldiers but Iraqi security forces and civilians as well. In all, the devices have claimed the lives of at least 422 American service members since the war began in March 2003, according to an unofficial tally.

New tactics and technologies discussed at the seminar include the proposed refinement of bulletproof vests and development of Kevlar pants. The vests, which now protect just the chest, might be redesigned to cover portions of the arms.

The military also is exploring the use of ultra-sensitive bomb-sniffing machines to detect traces of explosives on fingertips or cell phones.

Above all, military leaders hope to break the chain of events that culminate in an attack using improvised explosive devices, from financing and construction to transportation and concealment.

Military leaders said they have been making progress. Since April 2004, the number of casualties resulting from the devices has decreased 45 percent, largely because of increased use of armored vehicles, better medical care and improved methods of finding the devices. The casualty rate has decreased despite an increase in improvised explosive device encounters.

Nonetheless, a dozen American soldiers were killed by the devices over the past week alone.