The Roadside Bomb, or IED [Improvised Explosive Device] is now the single biggest challenge to US Forces in Iraq, and increasingly, Afghanistan.

Some 81,000 such devices, including 25,000 in 2007 so far, according to
US Military sources.

IEDs have caused nearly two thirds of all 3100 American combat deaths in Iraq, and an even higher number of battle wounds.

This year alone, through mid July, they have also resulted in an estimated 11,000 Iraqi civilian casualties and more than 600 deaths amongst Iraqi security forces.

To the extent that the United States is not winning militarily in Iraq, the roadside bomb, which as of 22 Sept. had killed or wounded 21,200 Americans,
is both a proximate cause and a metaphor for the miscalculation and improvisation that has characterised the war.

The battle against this weapon has been a fitful struggle to regain the initiative-a relentless cycle of measure, countermeasure and counter countermeasure-not only by discovering and neutralising hidden bombs,
the so called fight at the roadside, but also by trying to identify and destroy
the shadowy network of financiers, stratigists, bombmakers and emplacers
who have formed at least 160 insurgent cells in Iraq, according to a senior
Defence Department offical. But despite nearly $10 billion spent in the past four years by the departments main IED-fighting agency, with an additional
$4.5 billion budgeted for fiscal 2008 the IED remains ''the single most effective weapon against our deployed forces'', as the Pentagon acknowledged this year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/29/AR2007092900750.html

The Roadside Bomb, or IED [Improvised Explosive Device] is now the single biggest challenge to US Forces in Iraq
Sir, I'd have to say that IEDs have been our number one obstacle here for several years. I'm surprised the numbers aren't higher.

A offensive weapon is much easier/cheaper to use and produce, than a effective defensive countermeasure/device.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/29/AR2007092900750.html

Thanks for that link - the series of articles are very interesting reading.

Ironically - the only way to really prevent IED's is to assume a Hussain type approach. An IED goes off and for every US soldier killed - we publicly hang 20 iraqi's chosen at random. The IED's would stop within a week.

Of course we cannot do that - the only solution is to remove the troops from Iraq and then no US citizens die from IED's

The more troubling undercurrent of that story is the level of learning the IED makers are going thru to perfect their evil business. Just like AQ grew out of the learning curve from fighting the Russians in Afghanistan - all we are essentially doing in Iraq is creating a whole new generation of terrorists. We are funneling BILLIONS of $ into the effective training of terrorists.

People who are experts in something generally continue being experts in that & do not look for other work. This is where the failure of the Iraq miss-adventure will almost certainly be told in the decades to come.

I read an article by General McNeill, Commander of NATO Forces in Afghanistan, who claims that Iranian Revolutionary Guards are suppling
Taliban with detonator devices.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/04/wafghan104.xml

Sir, I'd have to say that IEDs have been our number one obstacle here for several years. I'm surprised the numbers aren't higher.
Turd you take care man, and please dont call me sir-:)

For what its worth-if your ever out on patrol,

'watch the childrens faces'.