From the Los Angeles Times
Bomb Buster for Iraq Hits Pentagon Snag
Army brass
says a device that destroyed 90% of roadside explosives in tests needs
further study. Marine Corps decides to bypass the bureaucracy.
By Mark Mazzetti
Times Staff Writer
February 12, 2006
WASHINGTON — A new high-tech vehicle that destroys roadside bombs has
passed a series of U.S. military tests but has not yet been sent into
battle, prompting charges that Pentagon bureaucracy is slowing the
effort to protect American troops in Iraq.
Last April, Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of a Pentagon
task force in charge of finding ways to combat the makeshift bombs
known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, endorsed development of
the vehicle, called the Joint IED Neutralizer. The remote-controlled
device blows up roadside bombs with a directed electrical charge, and
based on Votel's assessment, then-deputy Defense Secretary Paul D.
Wolfowitz recommended investing $30 million in research and sending
prototypes to Iraq for testing.
But 10 months later — and
after a prototype destroyed about 90% of the IEDs laid in its path
during a battery of tests — not a single JIN has been shipped to Iraq.
To many in the military, the delay in deploying the vehicles, which
resemble souped-up, armor-plated golf carts, is a case study in the
Pentagon's inability to bypass cumbersome peacetime procedures to meet
the urgent demands of troops in the field. More than half of U.S.
combat deaths in Iraq have been caused by roadside bombs, and the
number of such attacks nearly doubled last year compared with 2004.
The Pentagon has identified the improvised bomb problem as one of its
top priorities. Two years ago, the top U.S. commander in the Middle
East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, called for a "Manhattan Project" to cut
down on roadside bombing casualties, but many believe that his level of
concern has not been matched in Washington.
"There's a
bureaucracy that really slows things down, and sometimes people don't
have the same sense of urgency," said one officer involved in the
effort to counter the bombs. "That's where my frustration comes in."
The officer declined to be identified for this article because he
feared retribution from superiors.
The Defense Department under Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has faced
similar charges of failing to act quickly to protect troops in combat.
Dissatisfaction with the Pentagon's overall response to the IED threat
in Iraq follows complaints about the military's failure to provide
sufficient body armor and adequate armor for transport vehicles.
A JIN prototype was tested extensively in mid-September at the
Army's Yuma Proving Grounds in the Arizona desert, destroying
most of the roadside bombs put in its way. But the Pentagon's IED task
force said that the device required further testing, and that a
decision to delay deployment had been made jointly by Pentagon
officials and commanders in Iraq.
"The
decision has been made that it's not yet mature enough," said Army
Brig. Gen. Dan Allyn, deputy director of the task force, which was
recently renamed the Joint IED Defeat Organization. Iraq is "not the
place to be testing unproven technology."
But the Marine
Corps believes otherwise and recently decided to circumvent the testing
schedule and send JIN units to Al Anbar province in western Iraq.
Marines have been deployed in the restive area, home to the cities of
Fallouja and Ramadi, since February 2004.
The Marines are now
making final preparations to deploy a number of JIN prototypes to Al
Anbar. Based on their performance, Marine commanders said, they hope
the device can eventually be used throughout Iraq.
The Joint
IED Neutralizer, built by a private contractor in Arizona, can be
driven in front of a military convoy or operated separately to clear
roadways of homemade bombs. The vehicle has a remote-control console
that troops can use from a safe distance, directing it like a
radio-controlled car.
A metal boom that extends from the
vehicle's chassis emits high-powered electric pulses — military
officials call it "man-made lightning" — that set off the detonators on
the bombs. The JIN is a spinoff technology of a larger U.S. government
effort to develop energy-based weapons that include lasers, electric
shocks and microwaves.
Pentagon officials and defense experts
agree there is no technological "silver bullet" for the IED problem in
Iraq. Insurgents continue to build bigger, more powerful bombs, and
have managed to carry out successful attacks against U.S. and Iraqi
troops even as the military develops new ways to counter them.
Although nobody in the military believes that deploying JIN vehicles to
Iraq will eliminate the roadside bomb threat, many consider it among
the most promising technologies yet developed, and question what they
believe is a slow deployment schedule set by Army leaders in charge of
the IED task force.
"The Army isn't saying no to this. They
are just saying yes very, very slowly, and it's a tragedy," said a
former senior Pentagon official who was involved in the development of
the JIN last year and who requested anonymity because he feared that
revealing his identity might endanger the future of the program.
The task force has been credited with developing various strategies to
combat the IED threat, such as changing military tactics and equipping
troops with electronic jammers that prevent insurgents from detonating
the makeshift bombs.
All this, top Pentagon officials say, has already reduced the threat of
roadside bombs in Iraq.
"Between the increase in armor and the changes in tactics, techniques
and procedures that we've employed, the number of attacks … that have
been effective has gone down, and the number of casualties per
effective attack has gone down," Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November.
But, partly as a
result of continuing complaints from commanders in the field, a month
later the Pentagon moved to expand the authority and the scope of the
task force. Critics had argued that under Votel, a one-star general,
the task force did not have enough influence to push other government
agencies such as the CIA, FBI and Energy Department to commit personnel
and resources to the effort.
Consequently, the Pentagon
announced in December that retired four-star Army Gen. Montgomery C.
Meigs would assume control of an expanded task force that might
ultimately number more than 350 people. The Pentagon also plans to
triple the organization's budget to approximately $3.5 billion per
year.
The Joint IED Neutralizer first came to the attention
of senior Pentagon leaders last spring, after Votel returned from a
demonstration of an early version and wrote an e-mail message to his
staff. In the message, he called the JIN a "highly innovative system"
that should be tested and prepared for "rapid insertion into the
theater."
Shortly afterward, on April 30, then-Deputy Defense
Secretary Wolfowitz wrote a memo about the JIN that went to Pace, then
the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with Gen. Richard
A. Cody, the vice chief of staff of the Army, and to the Pentagon's top
civilian official in charge of weapons acquisition.
Wolfowitz's memo said the JIN had the potential to "dramatically alter
the balance of power on IEDs," and recommended that the Pentagon
immediately invest $30 million in the system to ramp up production and
begin testing in Iraq.
Yet to date, only about a dozen JIN
units have been produced. Officials at the company that makes the
vehicle, Tucson-based Ionatron Inc., say they can currently build 17
JIN vehicles per month, but with the Pentagon's approval could quickly
increase production to about 50 per month.
The company, which
is publicly traded, has other contracts with the Pentagon and U.S.
intelligence agencies to develop energy-based weapons.
At a
cost of about $200,000 per unit, the JIN is far cheaper than most
military vehicles, and is designed to be expendable. Although clad with
armor to withstand bullets from an AK-47, the vehicle could be damaged
or destroyed while detonating a large roadside bomb. However, it is
designed to destroy bombs from a distance, a feature that should allow
it to be used multiple times.
Officials on the IED task force
said they were apprehensive about deploying new technology to Iraq
before it had been thoroughly tested. Allyn, the task force deputy
director, said that in the past the Pentagon had made the mistake of
sending technology to combat zones too early.
"It puts the burden on people who have a mission to perform and puts
them at risk," Allyn said.
Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
