JIEDDO, Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.

Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO):

Suicide attacks were approaching three each week, according to State Department and United Nations figures, from three in all of 2004 and 17 in 2005. Often recruited in Pakistani madrassas and frequently driving a Toyota Corolla painted to look like a taxi, the typical bomber was male, 15 to 35 years old, "clean-shaven . . . nervous, restless, eyes fixed, glazed, avoids eye contact," according to a U.S. military description. Hair samples from dead bombers showed that many were drugged with sedatives, "Dama dam mast Qalandar", hashish and opium or even Herion.
al Qaeda uses the drug problem, if they are to wasted to do the bombing they send them on an errand with a timer attached to explosives, or a cell phone denator for when druggie reaches his destination.


The counter-IED strategy now followed three distinct paths: defeat the device, attack the network, train the force. Simple, cheap gadgets, like those on the table, were expensive to vanquish. JIEDDO's mission was not to thwart all roadside bombs, but to "defeat IEDs as weapons of strategic influence." Since the invasion three years earlier, 32,000 IED attacks had occurred in Iraq.

Of the 81,000 IED attacks in Iraq over the past 4 1/2 years, few proved more devastating to morale than that "huge fire" in Haditha. At a time when coalition casualties per IED steadily declined, even as the number of bombs steadily increased, the abrupt obliteration of an entire squad -- made up mostly of reservists from Ohio -- revealed that the billions of dollars being spent on heavier armor and other "defeat the device" initiatives had clear limits.

"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam." I'll find a way or make one.

Two weeks after the Haditha killings, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, who headed the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, lamented the failure of American science to vanquish the roadside bomb. "If we could prematurely detonate IEDs, we will change the whole face of the war," he said. For "a country that can put a man on the moon in 10 years, or build a nuke in 2 1/2 years of wartime effort, I don't think we're getting what we need from technology on that point."

Various engineers were pursuing the "scientific molecular sniffer" that Abizaid had also envisioned shortly after taking over at Centcom in 2003, but Los Alamos hoped to exploit the honeybee's keen sense of smell as a means to detect explosives.

Researchers placed each bee in a tiny harness, exposed the insects to various explosive scents for six seconds, and then provided a sugar water reward. This Pavlovian conditioning soon caused a bee to extend its proboscis -- tongue -- in anticipation of sugar whenever it detected a whiff of TNT or C-4 plastic explosive. A small television camera placed in a box where the bees were harnessed would allow a soldier watching a monitor to see whether the "proboscis extension reflex" signaled the presence of explosives. In 2004, bees had stuck out their tongues at 50 pounds of TNT in a simulated IED, according to Robert Wingo, a Los Alamos chemist.

Votel's reaction upon learning of the project was typical: "What?" The practical applications in combat seemed limited. "How do we operationalize this?" he asked. "How does, say, 1st Platoon manage their bees?" Among other problems, harnessed bees tended to be short-lived. After an analysis concluded that the honeybee's "explosive-detection capabilities have significant reliability issues," as a Defense Department official put it earlier this year, the Pentagon withdrew its support.

New low power jammer:

But Warlock Blue was designed to counter a low-power radio threat that had never posed much danger to dismounted troops and had nearly disappeared in recent months as other jammers drove bombmakers to more powerful radio triggers.

The Blue was a half-watt jammer at a time when some engineers suspected that 50 watts might be too weak. Each one used eight lithium batteries, which required frequent replacement. In anticipation of Blue, the government bought 400,000 CR123 lithium batteries, according to the Navy. "Do you know what it's going to cost me for batteries for these systems?" one skeptical Army general asked an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) officer in Baghdad.

Some troops appreciated the Blue, and even considered it a good-luck talisman, like an electronic rabbit's foot. But many commanders believed the jammer was extraneous to the fight they faced, another well-intentioned gadget of marginal relevance. An electrical engineer with long experience in Iraq and Afghanistan later recalled: "A lot of people felt it was being crammed down their throats."

Although still a small fraction of all roadside bombings, EFP attacks since spring had increased from about one per week to roughly one every other day. When fired, the semi-molten copper disks struck with such violence that casualties tended to be higher and more gruesome than in other IED attacks. "This was beyond the capability of anything in our arsenal," an Army brigadier general said. "And, by the way, you can't armor your way out of this problem."

The passive infrared trigger used with most EFPs was not only immune to radio jamming, it was difficult to detect. When a mock EFP was installed on a Florida range used to train new EOD technicians, the device "killed" at least 400 of them in three months. Not one, according to an instructor, spotted the small lens that tripped the bomb.

Just as alarming was the first confirmed appearance, on July 6, 2005, of an EFP that combined a passive infrared trigger with a radio-controlled "telemetry module," electronic circuitry that allowed a triggerman to be selective about what he attacked.

Previously, an EFP would fire when the infrared sensor detected the first warm object to pass, whether a Humvee or an Iraqi tractor. But the telemetry module, which had civil uses in transmitting data, let the insurgent wait to arm the EFP with a radio signal as a U.S. convoy approached. Worse yet, those radio signals tended to use a frequency outside the "loadsets" programmed into most American jammers, according to an Army colonel.

These developments sparked diplomatic and military countermeasures. Washington and London reportedly sent protests to Iran, which was accused of supplying both training and materiel to Shiite insurgents in Iraq. In August 2005, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld asserted that "it is true that weapons, clearly, unambiguously from Iran have been found in Iraq," an accusation Tehran denied.

The telemetry module that had been captured on July 6 was sent to the Terrorist Explosives Device Analytical Center in Quantico for examination by the FBI and other specialists. More EFPs followed, although in at least one instance -- involving an array with five warheads -- difficulty in transporting explosives and securing overflight permission delayed the shipment for weeks.

Meanwhile, soldiers in the field pursued their own solutions. Because a passive infrared sensor reacted to heat signatures, one inventive trooper proposed mounting a giant hair dryer on a bumper to blow hot air in front of the vehicle. Another took a toaster purchased at a bazaar, plugged it into his Humvee and dangled the glowing appliance from a long pole welded to the front of the vehicle.

A similar but more practical idea, also proposed by a soldier, became a countermeasure called Rhino. A glow plug -- a pencil-shaped object with an electrical heating element, often used in diesel engines -- was placed inside a metal ammunition can, which was then attached to a metal pole 10 feet in front of a Humvee or truck. The red-hot can decoyed the infrared sensor into triggering prematurely so that the copper EFP slug fired at the Rhino rather than the vehicle.

Within four to six weeks, insurgents began countering the countermeasure by aiming the EFP to fire at an angle so the slug struck 10 feet back from the Rhino. "Anything that's effective becomes ineffective," an Army colonel observed, "because this enemy will morph." The counter-countermeasure in turn provoked further measures in a variation called Rhino II, including the use of a telescoping pole that let troops vary the distance between glow plug and vehicle.

Rhino II would remain a standard feature on U.S. military vehicles in Iraq. At a cost of $1,800 each, more than 13,000 have been built, mostly at Letterkenny Army Depot in central Pennsylvania. The rectangular box on a long pole protrudes from nearly every Humvee and truck sent into harm's way in Iraq.

"Psychologically," a former Army officer said, "it's huge."

One assessment calculated that an IED could be detonated 90 ways, but Meigs knew that the number was almost infinite. Bombmakers used the world's vast consumer electronics market as a research lab and test bed. "Microsoft pumps out enhancements of software about every nine months," Meigs said. "You get a new generation of cellphones between a year and 18 months. That's the rhythm we're on, and it's a totally different way of doing business. . . . You can't just play defense in this game."

Simply sketching a coherent picture of IED trends was difficult. Much of the data were "dirty," with the anomalies and errors inevitable in combat reports. Some analysts believed that 20 percent or more of all IEDs were never reported. An infantry platoon, bomb squad and medical team might report the same incident using three 10-digit grid locations, which in a database could become three incidents. Was the "Kia" cited in various reports a Korean-made vehicle or "killed in action?" Were soldiers using local time or Zulu (Greenwich Mean Time)?

"The IED fight was not put in check," an Army colonel complained. At a Central Command conference in Qatar in January 2006, another colonel showed a slide of vast stacks of equipment in a huge assembly area. It was labeled "Counter IED in Iraq." The next slide showed a man on a donkey holding a basketball. It was labeled "Counter IED in Afghanistan."

New tech:

The Spider Mod 1 radio-controlled bomb trigger first seen in 2002 continued to appear, but evolutions had reached the Spider Mod 5. Those, too, came from Pakistan, U.S. intelligence believed, often with the radio frequency and firing code written on the case by the bombmaker for the emplacer's benefit. The Acorn jammer initially sent to Afghanistan in 2002 still worked against the Spiders, but additional jammers would be needed against other devices detonated by radio waves.

No EFPs had appeared in Afghanistan; instead, double-stacked anti-tank mines provided the explosive punch in the most powerful IEDs. A unique "pressure-cooker bomb" -- a lidded metal rice pot filled with explosives -- also proved increasingly lethal, especially in the Pech River Valley to the northeast.

In Iraq, things were much worse. A sharp spike in attacks in late 2005 had pushed the number above 1,500 a month, twice the annual figure in Afghanistan. Troops and commanders alike had grown wary of help from Washington. "Stuff was coming in without control," one colonel recalled. "It would just show up, and we'd say, 'How the hell did that get here?' "

A review of 70 IED countermeasures found that only half had been tested in the United States before being shipped overseas, and that fewer than one-third were evaluated after arriving in the theater. Assessing what worked was exceptionally hard.

Under what circumstances did Rhino succeed? If it failed, was it because the Humvee was going too fast? Too slow? Was the glow plug functioning properly? Where did Warlock Green work best? Which was better, ICE or SSVJ? If a radio-controlled IED failed to detonate, who could be sure it was because the jammer jammed? "That makes it very difficult to determine where to put your money," one senior analyst said.

Meigs proselytized. IEDs were the insurgents' fires, their artillery, used for political effect to erode American will, he said. The enemy attacked idiosyncratically, leveraging their capabilities "against our structural weaknesses."

Three years into the Iraq war, the U.S. military remained too much on its heels. "We spend a tremendous amount of money trying to defeat the device, because that's the immediate way of preventing casualties," Meigs would later observe. "But we really need to spend more on attacking the enemy's system, attacking the networks. . . . You can kill emplacers all day and you're not going to slow this thing down."

In a heated four-hour meeting on Jan. 26, in a headquarters conference room at the Al Faw Palace, west of Baghdad, Meigs complained that data from the field failed to reach JIEDDO quickly, making it difficult to swiftly assess trends and take action. A new counter-IED organization, Task Force Troy, which would grow to 1,000 people in Iraq, joined EOD teams, the Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell and half a dozen newly arrived weapons intelligence teams, designed to investigate bomb scenes. Meigs believed CEXC and WIT should report directly to JIEDDO, which paid most of the costs.

This sat badly in Baghdad. "Sir, General Meigs wants everything you've got," Col. Kevin D. Lutz, the Task Force Troy commander, told his corps commander, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli. "He says that if he bought it, he owns it."

This also sat badly at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, where Meigs flew to see Abizaid after returning from Iraq in early February. "You need to tell Meigs he's not a general anymore," a senior officer in Baghdad had advised Abizaid. "He's general retired."

At Whitehouse: Meigs spoke for 10 minutes, using five briefing slides. He displayed a chart showing how IED attacks continued to climb in Iraq while the number of bombs causing coalition casualties remained flat. Another chart depicted the evolution of IED triggers, including the sharp reduction in low-power, radio-controlled detonators, the recent appearance of cellphones, and the persistence of passive infrared triggers. The latter were tied to EFPs, which in turn had Iranian links.

JIEDDO has organized the requirement needs by five different functional areas:

• Predict/Prevent
• Detect
• Neutralize
• Mitigate
• Training

These functional areas are supported by the technology areas listed below.

• Directed Energy Systems
• Radar/RF Systems
• Standoff Chemical/Explosive Detection
• Protection and Mitigation
• Intel Operations Support
• Imaging, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Sensors and Systems
• Modeling & Simulation, Data Fusion, Knowledge Management Tools
• Training Solutions

The new web site https://www.jieddo.dod.mil

This is one of the most advanced web sites in the Government.

Rss feeds, welcome questions, Blog, news, and news letters, pods, etc. interactive.

• Proposal Submission
• Contact JIEDDO

Unlike FBI or CIA sites they want to talk. they want ideas.

Q: What is JIEDDO's mission?

A: JIEDDO's mission is to focus (lead, advocate, coordinate) all Department of Defense actions in support of Combatant Commanders' and their respective Joint Task Forces' efforts to defeat Improvised Explosive Devices as weapons of strategic influence.(more)
Submit your question

Research Opportunities With The Joint Improvised Explosive Devices Defeat Organization by Col. Barry Shoop

Abstract:
The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) has the mission of focusing all Department of Defense actions in support of Combatant Commanders and their respective Joint Task Forces' efforts to defeat Improvised Explosive Devices as weapons of strategic influence. As part of this mission, JIEDDO has aggressively engaged in outreach to the National scientific enterprise. The purpose of this outreach is to ensure that JIEDDO has access to and engages the best and brightest minds in America to defeat Improvised Explosive Devices as weapons of strategic influence.

Counter-IED activities encompass a broad spectrum of academic disciplines including humanities and social sciences, mathematical and computer sciences, as well as traditional physical sciences. Understanding social networks, psychology and sociology of terrorists and terrorist networks, and human geography are critical to defeating the IED network. Mathematical sciences and operations research activities can provide quantitative analysis of system performance. Traditional physical sciences including nearly all engineering disciplines play a key role in detecting and defeating communication networks and individual devices.

Sourced: jeiddo web page, MSNBC lot of background.

Gerald

Question spy in Jieddo?

Seems like the counter the tech very fast?

Tactics, not technology, may be making the difference in the fight against improvised bombs. But the military is still sending all kinds of gadgetry out into the warzones, to try top stop the weapons. The new annual report from the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), has one of the most complete lists I've seen yet of the bomb-battling gizmos.

The most important gear, by far, are the radio frequency jammers, which keep radio-controlled improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from being detonated from afar. In fact, I have a feeling the government may be underplaying, a bit, the value of these tools in their public pronouncements. JIEDDO has been supplying three flavors of jammer: Duke, which is mounted on vehicles; Chameleon, an improved version; Guardian, which is worn in a backpack. Overall, JIEDDO has purchased 37,000 of things.

The group has also bought a bunch of different high-powered camera projects, to watch out for bomb-planters. They include:

• Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment (RAID), a blimp-based surveillance system.
• Eagle Eye, a four-tower system that combines radars and long-range day/night surveillance cameras into a base defense operations center.
• Ground-Based Optical Surveillance System (G-BOSS), an ultra-powerful camera, sitting on a big-ass tower, that can see minute details from a mile away, if memory serves right.

Then there are a bunch of gadgets that get attached to Humvees, Strykers, and other ground vehicles. Check 'em out, after the jump.

Continue reading "Jammers, Spy Blimps Battle Bombs" »

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Gerald

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