SEEKING A SOLUTION
I can't wait until we can render the primary offensive weapon of these thugs nearly useless.

Of all the threats U.S. troops face in Iraq, improvised explosive devices are the most pervasive, deadly and difficult to counter.

Defense Department and service officials are pouring millions of dollars into IED countermeasure research, troop training and awareness, and better protection, but the carnage continues.

“IEDs continue to be the greatest casualty producer among our troops in the field,” Army Gen. John Abizaid said during a March 3 House Armed services committee hearing.

Together with the Army’s Chief of Staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Abizaid has pulled together an “IED Task Force” to look at every aspect of countering the deadly devices.

Activated in October 2003, the task force “maintains teams in Iraq and Afghanistan to directly the support theater commanders,” Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Yakovac Jr., military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, said in a Wednesday hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.

Little information is available about this task force. But the Pentagon’s top civilian who is focused on countering IEDs, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Thomas O’Connell, told Congress on March 10 that he regularly receives updates from the group, and that he has appointed his “senior EOD,” or explosives ordnance disposal, expert to work directly with the task force.

O’Connell told House members that DOD is reaching out to other government agencies for help with the IED problem, and that the FBI “has been extremely helpful.”