IEDs remain the biggest threat to deployed soldiers

FORT DRUM — During the past decade, the deadliest weapon used in Iraq and Afghanistan against the 10th Mountain Division has been one that can be built with homemade explosives and triggered by simple electronics.

More than half of the division's 278 deaths during attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq came from some form of an improvised explosive device. The weapon's lethality now is as high as it has ever been, with nine soldiers killed in the past month alone.

Homemade bombs have been used to disrupt forces throughout history and they are currently the two wars' signature weapons for one reason.

“They work,” former division commander Lt. Gen. Michael Oates said in an email. “The enemy uses IEDs because they are effective against us without having to expose the enemy to a direct engagement.”

The general commanded the division between 2007 and 2009, served a tour in Iraq in 2008 and then went on to command the Department of Defense's Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.

Coalition forces' powerful weapons and vehicles weren't built for what would eventually become counterinsurgency operations.

“While we have a range of detection systems and our soldiers are well-trained,” he said. “The enemy takes advantage of hiding among the civilian population and employs these devices on our routes of travel.”

Roadside bombs began to take a grim toll on convoys in Iraq in 2003. With soldiers trying to avoid the bombs, humvees would barrel at high speeds through Baghdad's crowded streets, said Lt. Col. William J. Carr, who was an artillery captain in 2001.

“The advice back then was ‘drive it like you stole it,'” he said. “We were bigger and stronger than anything else, so the tendency was to push other vehicles, and other stuff, out of the way because we could get hit by something.”

But Army tactics changed when the military began to work more with civilians.

By 2008, IED attacks in Iraq began to decline , which the Army associated with its success in working with civilians

Gen. Oates said during his deployment more provinces came under Iraqi control, and the Iraqi army and police took charge in security operations.

“The greatest improvement was in the capability of the Iraqi Security Forces,” he said.

Not only did the number of IED attacks decline, but locals also began giving coalition soldiers more helpful tips.

“The population became less supportive of the insurgency,” he said.

Col. Carr also said he saw a changing dynamic in Iraq.

In his second Iraq deployment in 2006, he considered many Iraqi police corrupt and inept. He returned to Iraq in 2009 to find a completely different force.

“Really, the training wheels were getting knocked off,” he said. “That's something I was proud of.”

In Afghanistan, the threat of IEDs began increasing in 2005 and skyrocketed in 2009.

Gen. Oates said Iraqi IEDs are often triggered by a cell phone while the Afghan versions usually detonate with the weight of a soldier or vehicle.

To engage with the Afghans in the counterinsurgency, soldiers have been required to spend less time in armored vehicles and conduct more foot patrols, which, according to a JIEDDO report, has resulted in more IED threats for soldiers who only have body armor and a helmet to protect them.

Even with increased efforts to encourage the Afghan population to reject the insurgency, the division has seen an increase in recent months of IED-related deaths.

The devices, Gen. Oates said, are an enduring reality of war.

“IEDs have been with us for many centuries,” he said,” and will remain a persistent threat in all parts of the world.”