Cost of Countering the IED Threat
Good article from the AP –
This quote hits the crux of the problem –
Lt. Col. Bill Adamson, operations chief for the anti-IED campaign, was realistic about the challenge in a Pentagon interview. “They adapt more quickly than we procure technology,” he said of the insurgents.
While this illustrates the sheer ineffectiveness of our spending –
The Pentagon’s upgraded Joint IED Defeat Organization is getting a sharply increased $3.3 billion this year to foil the often rudimentary weapons, which the Iraqi resistance generally fashions from artillery and mortar rounds. The “JIEDDO” staff of explosives experts and others will almost triple, to 365.
From 2004 to 2006, some $6.1 billion will have been spent on the U.S. effort — comparable, in equivalent dollars, to the cost of the Manhattan Project installation that produced plutonium for World War II’s atom bombs.
…Since mid-2005, an average of about 40 Americans a month have been killed by improvised explosives, twice the rate of the previous 12 months, according to icasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks casualties in Iraq.
This massive return on investment will perpetuate this conflict (with increasing degrees of violence) and will serve as the primary reason as to why we will not be able to sustain our efforts in Iraq.
-Shlok
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