12/28/2023 0 Comments Bombsquad nose guard![]() ![]() The core problem: the bombs are still proliferating - and not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, but globally. "It is still difficult to associate funds spent with positive effects," the committee wrote in a memo critical of the organization's "inability to clearly articulate what it has been able to accomplish." Last month, the Senate Appropriations Committee, while supportive of JIEDDO overall, cut nearly $442 million out of the Pentagon's requested budget for the organization next year, finding that "certain programs" it operates "fall outside IED-specific focus." That's in line with years of Hill disillusionment about the organization over its bureaucracy and dependence on contractors. In March, the House Armed Services Committee questioned how well JIEDDO spent the $18.77 billion it's received since its 2004 inception. At yesterday's conference, Oates said aerial sensors, particularly those creating full-motion video of bomb-heavy areas, were "enormously useful" in the fight against IEDs.Ĭongress, however, isn't pleased. JIEDDO has also outfitted over 500 vehicles with special sensors to spot bombs at night (cost: $51 million) sponsored a "Wolfhound" sensor for dismounted infantrymen to detect insurgents' personal communication devices (cost: $15 million) and an "enhanced optics system" called Keyhole that helps marksmen hit their bombmaker targets (cost: undisclosed). The Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar is a $138 million aircraft-mounted sensor that tracks moving targets like scampering insurgents from the skies. JIEDDO pays for radio jammers to stop the frequencies insurgents might use to detonate the bombs. ![]() Forensics teams match latent fingerprints on bombs with Afghan bad guys whose thumb-scans and eye-prints are stored in biometric databases. Drones in the skies over Afghanistan hunt teams of bomb-planting insurgents. forces can find them.Īnd JIEDDO is still spending big money on gadgets to spy on and disrupt every part of the IED network. So rather than continuing a potentially futile search for a silver bullet, JIEDDO is now recommending other, non-technological, ways to combat IEDs, such as improved training and deeper understanding of the local sociopolitical landscape where IED planters are created much faster than U.S. ![]()
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