Homemade Bombs Bedevil Troops

[kskiska]

BAGHDAD, Sept. 8 -- The weapons are homemade, cobbled together from artillery shells or other munitions, and hidden in such things as a clump of dirt, a soda can or a dead animal. According to military officials, they are usually planted at night and detonated during the day, often by remote control.

They are roadside bombs, known in military parlance as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Well suited to the disorder of postwar Iraq, they have killed 16 U.S. soldiers since July. The bombs have also killed one British soldier, an Iraqi interpreter working with Americans and a woman standing near U.S. troops.

Thirty U.S. soldiers have been wounded by such devices, including two today in central Baghdad. The soldiers were in a convoy traveling through a cavernous three-lane underpass this morning when a bomb was detonated by remote control, military officials said.

"That's the terrorism part of the device," said Lt. Col. Tim Everhard, commander of the 3rd Ordnance Battalion, which is housed at Baghdad's international airport and specializes in explosive removal. "That's the key: that you don't know where it is or when he is going to use it."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45480-2003Sep8.html

[JohnyCanuck]

1. Hmmmmm

That's the terrorism part of the device," said Lt. Col. Tim Everhard, commander of the 3rd Ordnance Battalion, which is housed at Baghdad's international airport and specializes in explosive removal. "That's the key: that you don't know where it is or when he is going to use it."

Much the same type of feeling, I suspect, as when B52 are overhead dropping bunker busters on you from 45,000 feet

[karlschneider]

3. No, bombs from 45000 ft. are "smart". Didn't you read the memo?

:grr:

[Scaramouche]

7. A friend told me that the British stopped using munition bombs...

towards the end of the bombing campaign in Iraq. They poured several hundred pounds of cement into the bomb shells instead.

I've had no independent confirmation of this but I'm sure from 45,000 feet they're just as deadly and just as "smart."

[markses]

4. The Battle of Algiers

It has been much reported lately that the Pentagon has been screening the 1965 film "The Battle of Algiers." see

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/weekinreview/07KAUF.html

There is, of course, the famous scene in which the French Army trots out a captured guerilla leader to answer questions from the French press.

"How can you put bombs in women's baskets?" asks an outraged French reporter, referring to a previous incident in which several women smuggled bombs out of the Casbah in their baskets, and dropped them off at French cafes.

"You give us your jet fighters," responds the guerilla leader. "We'll gladly give you our bombs in women's baskets."

Which is why, of course, the Pentagon is screening the film....

[bemildred]

2. Used to call them booby-traps, IIRC.

[bvar22]

5. Viet Nam deja vu.

And these guys pretend to be surprised.

[saigon68]

11. THEY ARE IDIOTS--IMBECILES

They need to read

"THE STREET WITHOUT JOY" by Bernard Fall which was published in 1959.

IRAQ-NAM REDUX --2003

[M155Y_A1CH]

6. Bomblets?

I wonder if some of these bombs are made from
unexploded US ordnance. We have left explosives all
over the countryside for anyone to pick up
and use against us.

[teryang]

8. Foreign invader criticizes "terrorists"

<That's the terrorism part of the device,"...."That's the key: that you don't know where it is or when he is going to use it.">

It is in Iraq and they are going to use it until our occupying forces leave. It is terrorism to attack an illegal foreign invader?

<There's way too much access to munitions throughout the country," Everhard said.>

It is a war. Hello!

[Sick of Bullshit]

10. If Iraq were Afghanistan of 20 years ago,

the Americans were Soviet soldiers, and everything else were the same, we'd be calling the Iraqis "freedom fighters".

[Devils Advocate NZ]

12. Not only that...

you'd be funding them.

[Whoa_Nelly]

9. Bush

is the bedevil...Karl Rove is the devil incarnate. :evilgrin: