Improvised explosive device.
It's probably safe to venture that just a few years ago most Americans had never heard those three little words used together in one phrase.
Now, those words are invoked daily in news stories and military briefings, as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have proven to be the deadliest weapon against U.S. troops in Iraq. Some 930 U.S. troops have been killed by these bombs, and 9,627 wounded.
Just as sectarian violence is on the rise in Iraq, with civilians now in the crosshairs of these explosive devices, the Pentagon is stepping up its efforts to deal with the IED problem. Officials are fond of saying there is no "silver bullet," no single solution. And they appear to be right.
Soldiers are trained to look for IEDs, but these weapons can be hidden in a pile of trash, in the carcass of a dead animal or in a cement curb at the side of the road. The Pentagon wants to spend more than $3 billion to develop new technologies to detect IEDs, but insurgents constantly change their bomb-making practices, so that each time there is a new U.S. detector, new types of bombs appear.
And now, the military has turned to the FBI to get help with forensic science and detective work, as they look for networks of bomb-makers and their funding sources as they try to dry up the deadly pipeline for these devices.
