Out on those risky roads, and back at the Pentagon, few believe that even the most advanced technology will eliminate the threat.
"As we've improved our armor, the enemy's improved his IEDs. They're
bigger, and with better detonating mechanisms," said Maj. Randall
Simmons, whose Georgia National Guard unit escorts convoys in western
Iraq that are regularly rocked, damaged and delayed by roadside blasts.
Lt. Col. Bill Adamson, operations chief for the anti-IED campaign,
was realistic about the challenge in a Pentagon interview. "They adapt
more quickly than we procure technology," he said of the insurgents.
Casualty charts show a growing problem.
Better armor and tactics lowered the casualty rate per IED attack
last year. But attacks almost doubled from 2004, to 10,593, meaning the
U.S. death toll from IEDs still rose. Since mid-2005, an average of
about 40 Americans a month have been killed by improvised explosives,
twice the rate of the previous 12 months, according to icasualties.org,
an independent Web site that tracks casualties in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the overall U.S. death rate held steady from 2004 to
2005, making IED fatalities comparatively more significant. Last month,
for example, 36 of 55 American military personnel killed in Iraq were
IED victims.
The bomb makers have the White House's attention. In a radio address
on Saturday, Bush said roadside bombs "are now the principal threat to
our troops and to the future of a free Iraq."
Bush said in a speech Monday that Iran
had supplied IED components to Iraqi groups, but U.S. officials have
presented no evidence to support that, nor did Bush explain why Shiite
Muslim Iran would aid Iraq's Sunni-dominated insurgency.
