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Roadside Bombs Decline in Iraq

By Tom Vanden Brook,

USA Today

Posted: 2008-06-23 10:11:25

Filed Under: Iraq News

WASHINGTON — Roadside bomb attacks and fatalities in Iraq are down by almost 90 percent over the last year, according to Pentagon records and interviews with military leaders. In May, 11 U.S. troops were killed by blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) compared with 92 in May 2007, records show. That's an 88% decrease.

A Plunge in Deadly Attacks

Bombing scene in Baghdad, Iraq, on May 6, 2007

Hadi MIzban, AP

Residents gather at the scene of a bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, in May 2007, a month in which 92 U.S. troops died in roadside bombings. In May 2008, 11 American troops died in such attacks, a plunge of 88 percent. Click through the gallery to read about some of the reasons for the decline.

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Military leaders cite several factors for the drop in attacks and deaths. They include:

New vehicles. Almost 7,000 heavily armored Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles have been rushed to Iraq in the last year. "They've taken hits, many, many hits that would have killed soldiers and marines in uparmored Humvees," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates made obtaining at least 15,000 MRAPs his top priority last year.

Iraqi assistance. Ad hoc local security forces, known as the Sons of Iraq, have provided on-the-ground intelligence to U.S. forces looking for IEDs, said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who commanded a division in Baghdad from February 2007 until May.

Each member of the security forces earns about $8 per day. Lynch has hired about 36,000 of them to man checkpoints and provide intelligence on the insurgency. He said about 60% had been insurgents.

Improved surveillance. Lynch said his troops used new security cameras that could see bomb builders up to 5 miles away. "If they're out there planting an IED, we can go whack them before they finish," he said.

Also, Lynch said, the 14-ton MRAPs have forced insurgents to build bigger bombs to knock out the vehicles. Those bombs take more time to build and hide, which gives U.S. forces a better chance of catching the insurgents in the act and then attacking them.

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Among the new U.S. tactics, paying the Sons of Iraq is a particularly good investment, said Dakota Wood, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Whether the money is viewed as "buying off" insurgents is less important than the lull in violence it creates, Wood said. It's almost impossible to rebuild infrastructure, foster commerce and set up elections when streets are unsafe, he said. "Any effort that creates a window of opportunity in which other stabilization actions can take root is a good thing."

Iraqi insurgents, however, are changing their tactics. During a visit to the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif., Marines showed Mullen the latest trend in IEDs: Fake curbs fashioned from metal, filled with ball bearings and explosives. Virtually indistinguishable from concrete rubble, the new bombs require a trained eye to spot.

Insurgents are also using pressure-detonated IEDs, including those with 15 pounds of explosives that blow the tires off an MRAP and allow insurgents to attack it, Mullen said.

"The whole issue of IEDs — vehicle borne, suicide, you name it — is going to be the weapon of choice and I think it's going to be around a long, long time," he said.

2008-06-23 07:30:59

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863 comments

lockonphasers 10:35:15 PM Jun 29 2008

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the US had better hope those extremists don't overthrow the government of pakistan were those nukes are. after all there are no WMDs in iraq.

ejralle 10:38:59 AM Jun 27 2008

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If Iraqi officials decide to thank theU.S. for liberating them from a terrorist regime is Zell Miller the only democrat that can honestly accept the thanks?

ejralle 10:36:48 AM Jun 27 2008

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If Iraqi officials decide to thank the U.S. for liberating them from a terrotist regime is Zell Miller the only democrat that can honestly accept the thanks?

mnmholly 08:36:05 PM Jun 23 2008

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AOL censors ... so stupid or mechanically inept they excise normal words, AOL just too Lame. This AOL censor is so stupid it puts words together across punctuation ... taking the end a word of one sentence and the beginning of a word in the next and censoring it! Did we pay AOL to censor like Idiots? The AOL censor suck on bottom slime and rapes the internet. The word that offends AOL above is "apes-ray" can you imagine what some foreign censor committee at AOL in India or Pakistan seem to think is wrong with this proper English word? Idiots at AOL. I guess we have to use "violent sexual assault" for apes-ray?

mnmholly 08:33:39 PM Jun 23 2008

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You might as well replace the US Flag on our troops uniforms with the various Corporate Logos they are fighting to promote. It might be fairer for the poor troops if they earned Stocks in the US Companies Profiting from their deaths in Iraq.

onemileast 06:57:19 PM Jun 23 2008

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Why is it that these fruitcakes can post over and over and over and over and some of us who think seriously about these subjects don't even get posted at all ????????

thekittenators 06:44:55 PM Jun 23 2008

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PROPACKAGE

DONT BRING THE PARENTS OF DEAD SOLDIERS INTO YOUR ANTI WAR RANT.......

THAT IS THE MOST COWARDLY POST YET........

THESE SOLDIERS WENT INTO THIS WAR AND BELIEVED IN WHAT THEY DID...............

propackage 06:40:46 PM Jun 23 2008

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i wonder if the parents of the dead soldiers get comfort in the fact that there were less of their children dead this month. Maybey they feel worse because they were more unlucky. Maybe they feel even worse because perhaps their children were not careful enough. Maybe our government should conduct war properly. War is ugly and disgusting. It should be something that is not thought about as an option because when it happens the destruction is deporable. Every Politician that votes on a war issue should have to have a child in the military. That child should have to be able to be put in harms way by the toss of a coin. Everyone will then be equal. Then when a Politicain looses a child he can console others that have endured the same pain

thekittenators 06:36:57 PM Jun 23 2008

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NOTICE YOU ARE HAING A HARD TIME POSTING ????

IM ABOUT TO ASK AOL FOR A REDUCTION ON MY BILL.............

katydid579 06:36:00 PM Jun 23 2008

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warmonger9987 04:58:26 PM Jun 23 2008

These spammers are really annoying and if you go to their websites, they seem to be full of viruses, so don't go.
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LOL Only a completely brain dead idiot would even think about going to those websites. I guess you really thought you'd see some good porn, eh? What a moron!

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