DoD Buzz: House Questions Joint IED Success Claims

[unhappycamper]

House Questions Joint IED Success Claims
By Greg Grant Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 2:44 pm
Posted in Land, Policy

Claims made by the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization that it is defeating IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan are hard to back up with any real data, the House Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations said in a report.

JIEDDO spends more than $4 billion annually on attacking human networks, providing training support and in rapid acquisition of IED countermeasures, mostly jammers. From an ad-hoc Army task force created in 2003 JIEDDO has grown to a 3,000 person organization. The House investigators looked at metrics JIEDDO uses to demonstrate success. They found: “It is impossible to demonstrate which of the specific initiatives and programs supported by JIEDDO are effective and to what degree.”

House investigators say DoD has invested billions of dollars and created a sprawling organization but IED use continues and, in Afghanistan, is spreading. IED attacks have become a global phenomenon, the report notes, with 200 to 300 IED attacks each month outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.

One indicator of success that JIEDDO uses is that over time insurgents in Iraq have been forced to use ever greater numbers of IEDs to inflict casualties on American troops. The subcommittee report says other factors may influence the lower casualty rate, including better ISR, improved TTPs, more tips from locals on IED locations and better armoring of vehicles. Also, the fact that insurgents are able to emplace a greater number of IEDs is perhaps not the best indicator of success. “Measuring JIEDDOs success beyond anecdotes… remains difficult,” according to the report.

IED attacks in Iraq have dropped dramatically from 2007 levels, as have all insurgent attacks in Iraq. But that drop is due to factors such as the surge, the Anbar Awakenings, Muqtada al Sadr’s ceasefire, more than any specific JIEDDO effort, the report says. More troubling is that IED attacks in Afghanistan have dramatically increased over the past two years.


Rest of article at: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2008/11/26/house-questions-joint-ied-success-claims/?wh=wh

[Ian David]

1. House always has questions...