Deryk Schlessinger and No.1 killers,1

IEDs the No. 1 killers in war zones occupied by the West

COLIN FREEZE From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
January 16, 2008 at 4:50 AM EST
Deryk Schlessinger and No.1 killers, 2

UPDATE: Sunday, July 06, 2008
$10 Billion Pentagon Program Fails To Defeat IED Threat In Iraq

Deryk Schlessinger and Chris Santory Afghanistan 2007
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — With yet another one of his men slain by an unseen enemy, Canada's top soldier in Afghanistan was forced to state the obvious in front of a microphone. "The insurgents are using IEDs and IEDS are the weapons of choice," Brigadier-General Guy Laroche matter-of-factly told reporters last night. There was little else to say.

With the week not yet half over, two of the general's convoys had escaped serious injury from two roadside bombings before a third attack claimed a life. Trooper Richard Renaud, 26, was in a Coyote, a light-armoured vehicle built for speed and reconnaissance, when a lethal bomb detonated yesterday morning.

Improvised explosive devices, IEDs, have become the No. 1 killers in the war zones occupied by the West, slaying dozens of Canadians in Afghanistan and hundreds of Americans in Iraq.

"Every time someone goes out the door, they are facing that threat," said Major Max Messier, the Canadian officer in charge of counter-IED measures in Afghanistan.

The military is trying everything it can think of to contain the threat. This fall, $30-million worth of armoured trucks, 16 in total, arrived for the Canadian troops fitted with technologies to detect and neutralize IEDs before they go off. They also came with built-in shielding mechanisms to keep the vehicles intact in the event of a blast.

In these new vehicles, and in some older armoured troop carriers and Leopard tanks, heavy metal plates, metal detectors, radio-signal jammers, extendable long digging arms and superfluous parts designed to be exploded all work in concert to try to save the lives of soldiers. Ottawa is tendering a $30,000 contract to test handheld vapour scanners that detect trace amounts of explosives on people and in vehicles.

Gen. Laroche has also announced plans to pave up to 10 kilometres of Kandahar roads, hoping that by hardening up the roads, and softening up the hearts of Afghans with some paid construction jobs, it will limit the Taliban's ability to place IEDs.

The Canadian efforts pale beside programs in the United States, where officials have called for a "mini-Manhattan Project" against IEDs. Billions are being spent, including some research money destined for seeming science-fiction projects: New robot dogs that sniff out explosives, aerial blimps that can spot insurgents from above, high-tech laser beams that can zap IEDs from a safe distance.

Those who seek to inspire terror in the hearts of allied soldiers are keenly aware of the uneven economics of asymmetric war. "The Americans know that an explosion to hit a U.S. convoy on a road does not cost us even $100," the Taliban ally, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, told a local newspaper last March.

The faded warrior was among the 1980s-era mujahedeen leaders whose troops shot down Soviet helicopter gunships with shoulder-launched missiles. The Russians did the math, concluded they were going broke, and went home.

Since that withdrawal, jihadists have espoused a patient, bleed-'em-till-they're-broke military strategy. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has frequently said he will keep "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy."

Yet the terrorist logic espoused by Mr. Hekmatyar and his ilk " only works if the local people let him place bombs where he wants to place them," said Fred Kagan, a former instructor at West Point.

Mr. Kagan, now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said that while there's nothing wrong with multimillion-dollar solutions to $100 bombs, science has its limits. "It's the usual technological spiral, you build a better mousetrap, they build a better mouse."

Generals in Afghanistan should look to Iraq, where a so-called troops "surge" has dramatically decreased the number and efficiency of IED attacks for the first time in years. The troops surge has made many civilians start to feel safe again, he said, and ordinary people have come to realize they have everything to lose if insurgents infiltrate their neighbourhoods. "It's not the technological solutions that have made the IED attacks go down," he said.

There may be no easy way to win hearts and minds. Yet what doesn't help is when an army captures, then loses, then fights to recapture the same pieces of ground, something Canadian Forces have been criticized for in Afghanistan. "At a certain point people say, 'To hell with you,' " Mr. Kagan said.

The Canadian Forces don't release statistics about how many bombs they intercept, but officials say it is a regular and growing occurrence.

Major Messier, the counter-IED expert, simply says Canadian-led forces are making strides in the villages and countryside. "The locals are talking, they are reporting the stuff they see," he said.

*****
By the numbers

Improvised explosive devices

are the epitome of asymmetrical warfare, in which a disadvantaged enemy uses limited means to extract great losses from a powerful adversary.

$100

Average cost of a rudimentary Afghan IED, according to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

$26-million

Cost of 16 IED detection and disposal vehicles recently purchased by Canada, including parts and maintenance

$29,130

Value of a contract to begin preliminary testing of hand-held explosive-detection scanners tendered by the government of Canada $200,000

Cost per unit of a so-called Warlock Duke anti-IED signal jammer that can be mounted on vehicles, purchased by the U.S. last year

$4.7-billion

Amount the Pentagon is requesting for its JIEDDO research program, formed to assist U.S. forces in the defeat of IEDs

$23.2-billion

Forecast value of global counter-IED procurement, services, and upgrade contracts between 2008 and 2012, according to Washington-based Homeland Security Research Corp.