AL FAW PALACE, BAGHDAD — His voice is as flat and unemotional as one would hope of someone trained to disarm and dispose of bombs.

Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Justin Hamaker, 31, is an explosive ordnance disposal team leader with EOD Mobile Unit 8, out of U.S. Naval Air Station Sigonella, Italy. He is among 20 sailors completing their fifth month of a six-month assignment in support of the Army's 79th Ordnance Battalion.

Hamaker's three-man team is on call 12 hours a day in and around Baghdad. Typically, the calls come from soldiers on foot patrol who find weapon caches or from convoys stopped near what they believe is a roadside bomb.

IEDs, improvised explosive devices, are the deadliest weapon of the Iraqi insurgency. Last month, IEDs killed 74 U.S. service members, the highest monthly toll since these makeshift bombs first began to appear in July 2003.

Just since September 2006, when Hamaker arrived in Iraq, IEDs have killed almost 200 Americans, most of them soldiers and Marines. Among IED victims over the past year were nine sailors, four of them EOD technicians.

Hamaker's 20-man unit hasn't suffered casualties, but they have had close calls. "Had IEDs go off on vehicles in our convoys," he said. "Had RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) shot at us. Take small-arms fire pretty regularly."

Among sailors killed by IED before Hamaker arrived in Iraq last September was a friend he trained with in Navy dive school.

The greatest threat is not handling unexploded bombs or weapon caches.

"The most dangerous part is just getting to wherever we're going," Hamaker said. That means, of course, that any U.S. service member traveling the roads of Iraq, including many of the 21,500 to arrive here under President Bush's new surge order, are exposed to what most worries even EOD technicians.

When a weapons cache is located, an EOD team arrives with their vehicle, a hardened EOD platform, and special equipment including a robot. The robot, about the size of child's wagon, moves on miniature tank-like tracks. Its remotely operated camera inspects the weapons cache, suspect bomb and surrounding area.

"If it's just a piece of ordnance," Hamaker said, "we will transport it to a safe area and dispose of it. If it can't be safely transported, using a robot we will maneuver it somewhere where we can blow it up."

Caches found so far have ranged from a few rocket-propelled grenades to a 2,000-piece stockpile of hand grenades through 155mm projectiles. About half of all caches found contain IEDs "in some state of production," Hamaker said. IEDs typically employ 57mm anti-aircraft shells or a 155mm projectile.

"We've run into some with small Russian bombs like 100 kilos," he said. "For the most part we can ID everything, just by sight. When you first get into country you're not real sure, but after a week or so you say, 'OK, I know what that is.' "

In Iraq, insurgents have no trouble finding bombs to make IEDs.

"You can walk around in some of the outlying fields of Baghdad and within 10 minutes stumble across some form of UXO out there," Hamaker said, using the military acronym for unexploded ordnance.

"The enemy is watching us do our job so that, just like the IRA (Irish Republican Army) or anybody else who has had to deal with EOD and first responders, now they are looking to get us," Hamaker said.

To counter that threat, "we just change the way we do business. We're always changing and share that (advice) with the rest of the folks out here. ... If you've been somewhere before, do something different this time."

Hamaker's team so far has cleared more than 30 IEDs in and around Baghdad. In a few cases they have returned to the same stretch of road.

The job requires a certain type of personality, Hamaker said.

"You have to be an aggressive person; we're all type A," he said. "But you have to know when to be aggressive and when to stop, stand back and observe. You cannot get sucked into just focusing on that shiny object down range (instead of) what's around you, and being able to control it."

For all the dangers, Hamaker said his time in Iraq "has been a great experience. I enjoy defeating IEDs. I like the challenge. And since we haven't suffered any casualties, we haven't had to deal with that side of it."