Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
San Diego Union-Tribune
September 18, 2008
By Rick Rogers, Staff Writer
CAMP PENDLETON [FONT=Times New Roman, Times]--[/FONT] The growing use of roadside bombs by insurgents in Afghanistan coupled with the arrival of thousands of Marines in that country are the reasons a state-of-the-art bomb-detection training center will be built on Camp Pendleton.
Construction is scheduled to start this winter with completion expected in spring 2010. A base statement on the project doesn't mention Afghanistan, but defense experts said it doesn't have to.
“IED attacks are going up in Afghanistan,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a public policy organization that specializes in defense issues. “The Marine Corps is really hot on filling Afghanistan chock full of Marines. This move is not hard to figure out now that the Marines are transitioning from Iraq to Afghanistan.”
The Camp Pendleton center will focus on training Marines how to detect improvised bombs when on foot and in vehicles. The new training area will include special roads and overpasses, along with classrooms. A cost figure and information on the size of the project were not released.
The number of attacks using improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, was about 200 this April in Afghanistan, although it has declined slightly since then. About 30 U.S. troops were killed there by roadside bombs in 2007, and so far this year that figure has nearly doubled.
Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va., said the IED threat is not going away.
“The options available for people to set these bombs and to penetrate our armor have become so diverse and easy,” Thompson said. “The Marines recognize that IEDs are the single greatest threat they are going to face.”
U.S. success in jamming remotely triggered bombs might be causing insurgents to return to manual detonation.
Recently found bomb triggers in Afghanistan included two wooden sticks, a bent piece of wire and a discarded AA battery hooked to a piano wire. In the past, garage-door openers and cell phones were the triggers of choice.
On Sept. 1, the Marines handed over military control of Anbar province to Iraqi forces, in theory freeing up some of the roughly 25,000 Marines based there to go elsewhere.
About 3,500 Marines are now in Afghanistan as part of a U.S. force that numbers about 33,000.
Robert Rozzi is president of Inert Products LLC, a Scranton, Pa., company that has sold training aids for IED detection to the military for years.
Rozzi said Camp Pendleton has been a good customer, especially recently. “I know we have sold them a heck of a lot of stuff.”
September 18, 2008
By Rick Rogers, Staff Writer
CAMP PENDLETON [FONT=Times New Roman, Times]--[/FONT] The growing use of roadside bombs by insurgents in Afghanistan coupled with the arrival of thousands of Marines in that country are the reasons a state-of-the-art bomb-detection training center will be built on Camp Pendleton.
Construction is scheduled to start this winter with completion expected in spring 2010. A base statement on the project doesn't mention Afghanistan, but defense experts said it doesn't have to.
“IED attacks are going up in Afghanistan,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a public policy organization that specializes in defense issues. “The Marine Corps is really hot on filling Afghanistan chock full of Marines. This move is not hard to figure out now that the Marines are transitioning from Iraq to Afghanistan.”
The Camp Pendleton center will focus on training Marines how to detect improvised bombs when on foot and in vehicles. The new training area will include special roads and overpasses, along with classrooms. A cost figure and information on the size of the project were not released.
The number of attacks using improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, was about 200 this April in Afghanistan, although it has declined slightly since then. About 30 U.S. troops were killed there by roadside bombs in 2007, and so far this year that figure has nearly doubled.
Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va., said the IED threat is not going away.
“The options available for people to set these bombs and to penetrate our armor have become so diverse and easy,” Thompson said. “The Marines recognize that IEDs are the single greatest threat they are going to face.”
U.S. success in jamming remotely triggered bombs might be causing insurgents to return to manual detonation.
Recently found bomb triggers in Afghanistan included two wooden sticks, a bent piece of wire and a discarded AA battery hooked to a piano wire. In the past, garage-door openers and cell phones were the triggers of choice.
On Sept. 1, the Marines handed over military control of Anbar province to Iraqi forces, in theory freeing up some of the roughly 25,000 Marines based there to go elsewhere.
About 3,500 Marines are now in Afghanistan as part of a U.S. force that numbers about 33,000.
Robert Rozzi is president of Inert Products LLC, a Scranton, Pa., company that has sold training aids for IED detection to the military for years.
Rozzi said Camp Pendleton has been a good customer, especially recently. “I know we have sold them a heck of a lot of stuff.”