Iraqi Bombers Thwart Efforts to Shield G.I.’s

By THOM SHANKER
Published: June 2, 2007
WASHINGTON, June 1 — American commanders are expressing frustration at the increasing death toll in Iraq caused by makeshift explosives, which have killed 80 percent of the Americans who died in combat over the last three months, despite the billions of dollars being spent to fight the threat.

The proportion of American deaths caused by explosives has sharply increased, even as the Pentagon has made a major effort to defend the troops with armored vehicles, to detect or disarm the weapons, and to attack the bomb-making cells and those who finance them.
The bombs are known as improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, and the Pentagon has formed a “Joint I.E.D. Defeat Organization” to combat the users. But in an interview on Friday, the director of that group said he recognized that the threat could not truly be defeated.
“It can be mitigated, minimized, made into a nuisance,” said the director, Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, a retired Army officer who took over the project in December 2005. “This is a very tough problem.”
The total of American deaths in April and May was the highest of any two-month period since the war began, and the 80 percent ratio caused by makeshift explosives is higher than it has ever been, up from 50 percent in January.
The increase coincided with the more aggressive operations being mounted by American troops in Iraq as part of the stepped-up campaign that President Bush ordered in January. >>>cont

LinkHere