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May 23rd,
2007 - US Losses in Iraq Spike from IED Attacks |
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US Losses in Iraq Spike from
IED Attacks The improvised roadside bombs have proved a lethal tool for insurgents
this spring. By Gordon Lubold Christian Science Monitor May 23rd, 2007 Washington - The number of
American troops killed by homemade bombs in Iraq has nearly doubled this
spring, since the "surge" of forces began, a stark reminder of the
dangers there and a trend that intensifies pressure on the Pentagon agency
charged with defeating the bombs. As of Tuesday, the Defense
Department confirms that 377 service members have been killed under hostile
circumstances since Jan. 1 – with 265 of those deaths, or 70 percent,
attributed to improvised explosive devices. That rate represents the average
normally attributed to deaths from the bombs, called IEDs. But the trend line is not
good. In each of the past two months, the share of deaths attributed to IEDs
has jumped to 83 percent, according to Pentagon data. The simple explosives are
hidden in cars, planted in the ground, or strapped to suicide bombers. But
over the past month insurgents have begun placing them in trucks to achieve
greater impact, Defense officials say. The actual number of service
members – including soldiers, marines, and other troops – killed by IEDs rose
from 39 in January to 78 in April. As of last Saturday, 48 more American
service members have been killed by IEDs since the beginning of May,
including seven who died Saturday (six of them in one attack in Baghdad). The result is more scrutiny
for the Pentagon organization that some believe should lead the effort to
minimize the use of the improvised explosive device, eliminate the No. 1
killer of US troops, and thereby fundamentally change the nature of the war
for US forces in Iraq. That is an enormous order
for the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO),
created as a task force to defeat IEDs in 2004 and formalized as an agency
last year. It has spent more than $6 billion so far but has been criticized
by some in Congress for not spending enough – or showing that it is getting
results. The soft-spoken head of the
agency, Montgomery Meigs, a retired Army four-star general, acknowledges that
his organization could do better at getting the word out. But it is spending
its money, and it's having an effect, he says. "We are making steady
progress and playing our role in helping units deal with this problem,"
he says. Some of the data that would
show the agency's successes is classified, Mr. Meigs says. That leaves him
able to provide little publicly that would illustrate just what the
organization has achieved in the past few years. Still, his main argument for
JIEDDO's effectiveness is that the number of IED incidents causing troop
casualties has generally remained steady since January 2004, while the number
of IED attacks has increased dramatically. "The amount of
casualties has remained about the same. It's got peaks and valleys, but it's
stayed about the same. But the number of IEDs has steadily gone up," he
says during an interview in his office not far from the Pentagon. "And
the proportion of the IEDs that we find – and that are ineffective or blow up
and nobody's hurt – has gotten larger, so this is the important chart." Additionally, it is taking
the enemy six times the number of attacks to kill just one coalition force
member, Meigs says. As for congressional
criticism that the JIEDDO hasn't spent enough of its budget – $4.4 billion in
fiscal 2007 if Congress honors its full request this year – Meigs says the
organization has spent the money. In fact, he says, the agency
has committed almost all its current funding, which means it has paid other
agencies for equipment and services – and those agencies have in turn spent
about 70 percent of those funds in a short time. That's not good enough for
Rep. Adam Schiff (D) of California, an appropriator who remains concerned
that the JIEDDO isn't having enough effect. Insurgents have made more
progress than has the IED-fighting organization, he says. "You still
have an increase in casualties at the end of the day," he says.
"That's the most disturbing fact." The JIEDDO has redirected
much of its budget to focus on defeating terrorist networks that plant IEDs.
In part that's because the agency has already bought much of the jamming,
radio, and other equipment used to defeat IEDs. It's also a sign that
attacking the source of the trouble may a more effective approach to the
problem. It also helped to spearhead an effort to build trucks that can withstand
such explosions. So-called Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicles have
become the focal point of force-protection initiatives in the Pentagon now. The efforts leave many
officials to ponder the possibilities of altering the course of the war.
"The country needs to focus on one thing and that is defeating
IEDs," says a Defense official. "If we could figure that out, we
could change the face of the war." External link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0523/p01s04-usmi.html |