GENERAL PETER PACE issued that statement last November in response to an inquiry about the Pentagon’s efforts to combat the threat of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq. What General Pace did not say was that the number of IED attacks had roughly doubled from 2004 to 2005 and thus better tactics, techniques, and procedures had failed to reduce the overall number of fatalities stemming from the IED threat.

There have been approximately 823 coalition fatalities directly attributed to IEDs. This number represents less than a third of overall casualties, but anecdotal evidence indicates that, among the troops on the ground, no tactic employed by the Iraqi insurgency is as dreaded. In the last month alone, 36 of 55 U.S. fatalities were the direct result of an IED.