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This story is from February 6, 2006
Pentagon forced to hike Iraq spending
The Pentagon is tripling its spending on a newly expanded effort to combat the homemade bombs that are the No. 1 killer of American troops in Iraq.
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is tripling its spending, to about $3.5 billion this year, on a newly expanded effort to combat the rising number of increasingly powerful and sophisticated homemade bombs that are the No. 1 killer of American troops in Iraq, military officials say.
The move is a tacit acknowledgment that despite years of rising death tolls from the devices, the response has not been sufficiently focused or coordinated at the highest levels.
And it comes in addition to recent spending to get more and better armor for troops and their vehicles, spurred by concerns expressed by Congress and the American public.
Interviews with a dozen officials in Washington and Iraq detailed an intensive effort on the overall project, which at one time was led by a one-star general but was recently put under a retired four-star Army general, Montgomery C Meigs.
Hundreds of other experts are being called in, including more than are currently involved from the FBI and CIA. New technology and training techniques are also quickly being pushed into service.
The increased response comes after the number of attacks with makeshift bombs against allied and Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians nearly doubled in the last year, to 10,593 in 2005 from 5,607 in 2004.
The military says it is able to discover and defuse only about 40 percent of the bombs, and the result is deadly: 407 of the 846 Americans killed last year in Iraq were killed by the bombs, which are called improvised explosive devices.
NYT News Service
The move is a tacit acknowledgment that despite years of rising death tolls from the devices, the response has not been sufficiently focused or coordinated at the highest levels.
And it comes in addition to recent spending to get more and better armor for troops and their vehicles, spurred by concerns expressed by Congress and the American public.
Interviews with a dozen officials in Washington and Iraq detailed an intensive effort on the overall project, which at one time was led by a one-star general but was recently put under a retired four-star Army general, Montgomery C Meigs.
In the next few months, the Defence Department plans to double the number of technical, forensic and intelligence specialists assigned to the problem, to about 360 military service members and contractors in the United States and Iraq.
Hundreds of other experts are being called in, including more than are currently involved from the FBI and CIA. New technology and training techniques are also quickly being pushed into service.
The increased response comes after the number of attacks with makeshift bombs against allied and Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians nearly doubled in the last year, to 10,593 in 2005 from 5,607 in 2004.
The military says it is able to discover and defuse only about 40 percent of the bombs, and the result is deadly: 407 of the 846 Americans killed last year in Iraq were killed by the bombs, which are called improvised explosive devices.
NYT News Service
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