Military.com reports that Congress has taken up a request to approve $2.4 billion in funding for the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization. That will be in addition to $2 billion that has already been approved. Of course, funding was never a problem in dealing with the IED threat–the Republican Congress threw as much money at the problem as they possibly could. Most of that money went to elaborate technologies that promised to deliver a “silver bullet” solution to neutralize the threat, but the toll from IEDs held steady. And the influx of Iranian-made explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) has made the military’s task considerably more difficult. Military experts have been emphasizing the need for a tactical, rather than a technological, solution, but the military continues to push for more armor and more jammers to solve the problem. Still, General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, acknowledged in the hearings yesterday that there was much more to defeating IEDs than new technologies.
If Pace’s comments represent a coordinated effort by the Pentagon to find a tactical, offensive solution to the IED problem–mainly going out and killing the guys building and deploying the devices–than we may begin to see a substantial decline in the number of American fatalities in Iraq, of which a disproportionate share result from roadside bombs. Still, even if the military is talking about tactical solutions, Congress is likely to continue emphasizing new defensive technologies. After all, a Congressmen wants to be able to show his constituents that he voted for more armor, more jammers, more UAVs, but he gets no credit back home for pushing the Pentagon to be more aggressive in going after the bad guys. This is likely to remain a major institutional challenge in the effort to defeat the IED.
