Pentagon: IED Use Soaring Worldwide

In comments which likely don’t augur well for his organization’s future, Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, the head of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, suggested there was no real way to defeat improvised explosive devices.

“If we think its going away after Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re dreaming,” Barbero said, noting that Pentagon stats show the weapons’ use soaring across the world, more than doubling in the past three years.

“It’s going to confront us operationally for decades,” Barbero added, terming the use of IEDs an “enduring threat.” The cheap, virtually impossible to detect explosives have become a major thorn in the side of the US military.

And in many ways, its another “enduring threat” created by US policy, as the methods for their creation have grown more advanced and battle-tested through use against US troops in open-ended occupations. Though burying a stick of dynamite in a hole isn’t exactly new science, the tactics involved with both the creation and deployment of advanced homemade explosives have soared largely in concert with US overseas deployments.