Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), Article 1
Compiled by David Barth on September 14, 2008 from an article by Rick Atkinson, Washington Post Staff Writer and
Staff researcher Madonna Lebling.
Article 1: IEDs, The Electromagnetic Spectrum, and
MOASS
Article 2: Jammers
Article 3: Types of IEDs & Vehicles
Article 4: First Objective: Defeat the Device
Article 5: Second Objective: Train the Force
Article 6: Third Objective: Attack the Network
Article 7: The Story of Lt. Col. Gadson
IEDs, The Electromagnetic Spectrum, and MOASS
BAGHDAD -- In the early spring of 2006, perhaps the most important document in Baghdad was known as the MOASS --
the Mother of All Spreadsheets-- a vast compilation of radio frequencies that insurgents used to trigger roadside
bombs.
In some areas of Iraq, 70 percent of all improvised explosive devices were radio-controlled, and they caused more
than half of all American combat deaths. An overworked Army intelligence officer tracked the frequencies, and an
equally overworked Navy electrical engineer matched them against 14 varieties of electronic jammer used by coalition
forces.
As new frequencies popped up, the updated MOASS was analyzed by the National Security Agency (NSA), by Navy electronic
warfare specialists in Maryland, and by Army specialists in New Jersey, which led to recommended adjustments in the
jammer settings. Those modified loadsets" were then e-mailed to U.S. military forces throughout Iraq so that the
jammers could be reprogrammed. The cumbersome process took weeks, by which time new frequencies had been logged
into the spreadsheet, requiring further analysis and further reprogramming even as hundreds of new jammers arrived
in Iraq each month. "It was a mess," a senior defense official
recalled.
By the end of 2006, the Department of Defense had spent more than $1 billion during the year just on jammers. Fielding
them "proved the largest technological challenge for DOD in the war, on a scale last experienced in World War II,"
according to Col. William G. Adamson, a former staff officer for the Joint improvised explosive device (IED) Defeat
Organization (JIEDDO), the Pentagon office coordinating the campaign.
"Put them back on the wire."
The U.S. strategy was defined in six words: "Put them back on the wire." By neutralizing radio-controlled bombs,
the jammers would force insurgent bombmakers to use more rudimentary triggers, such as command wire. Those triggers
would be simpler to detect, in theory, and would bring the triggermen closer to their bombs, where U.S. troops could
capture or kill them.
That strategy succeeded. In the subsequent 18 months following early 2006, radio-controlled bombs would shrink to 10
percent of all IEDs in Iraq. Eventually, bombs triggered by simple command wire increased to 40 percent of the
total.
But the threat from IEDs barely diminished. In the first seven months of 2007, there were 20,781 roadside bomb
attacks in Iraq, one every 15 minutes. IEDs killed 440 U.S. troops January through August 2007. Putting them back
on the wire proved a mixed blessing.
Different jammers worked by different means. Active jammers screamed constantly, disrupting radio-controlled bombs
with a barrage of radio waves on pre-selected frequencies that drowned out the triggering signal. Reactive jammers
"scanned and jammed" by monitoring the electromagnetic spectrum -- like a human ear in a crowded restaurant listening
for a voice that whispered "detonate, detonate, detonate" -- and then blocked the frequencies they were programmed to
block.
Counter Radio-Controlled IED Electronic Warfare (CREW)
Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, a hodgepodge of jammers had arrived in Mesopotamia, both active and
reactive, weak and powerful:
- Warlock Green
- Warlock Red
- Warlock Blue
- ICE
- MICE
- SSVJ
- MMBJ
- Cottonwood
- Jukebox
- Symphony
Collectively they were now known as CREW, an awkward acronym for: counter radio-controlled IED electronic
warfare.
As more jammers flooded the war zone, the mess grew messier. For many months, the shortcomings in electronic warfare
expertise had been evident among Army and Marine units. "We had all these boxes over there and people didn't know how
to use them," said Rear Adm. Arch Macy, commander of the Naval Surface Warfare Center. "They'd turn them on,
thinking they were protected when they weren't."
Electronic "fratricide" intensified, with more instances of jammers disrupting coalition radios and even the radio links
to unmanned aerial vehicles. More troops switched off their CREW systems rather than risk disrupting their radios;
rumors circulated that jammers actually detonated IEDs.
In some instances, according to a senior officer in Baghdad, investigations of fatal IED attacks revealed that "the
device that killed them was triggered by a frequency that could have been stopped by proper jamming." A now-retired
Army lieutenant colonel said, "There were a whole lot of things that made you just want to cry."
Among the biggest problems was simply the crowded electromagnetic environment in Iraq. Most fiber-optic and
above-ground telephone lines had either been destroyed during the 2003 invasion or subsequently looted by copper-wire
scavengers. 27 million Iraqis use unregulated cellphones, walkie-talkies, satellite phones, long-distance cordless
phones and, in hundreds of instances each month, radio-controlled bombs.
About 150,000 coalition troops also sent out a great spray of electronic emissions, which mutated dramatically every
time new equipment or a new contingent of soldiers arrived, including some with old Warsaw Pact electronics. "People
have said it's the most challenging electromagnetic place in the world," a Navy captain said. "It's very complex."
Trying to make sense of the signals, he added, was "like having your head underwater."
This was especially true in Baghdad, where the electromagnetic environment seemed to vary between neighborhoods,
between seasons, between times of day. "No one realized," the senior Pentagon official said, "how much tougher jamming
was going to be in the ground plane" -- the ground-air interface, where earth meets sky. The Army logistician added:
"We didn't scientifically map out the problem set, so we didn't know the normal electronic noise of a taxi driver
doing his thing, the doorbells, the garage door openers, the satellite communications . . .
You have to know the normal program of life."
The Pentagon would spend millions of dollars trying to replicate Baghdad's idiosyncratic airwaves in laboratories
and at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Senior commanders in Baghdad "were going bonkers," the Army colonel recalled.
"They were saying, 'How do we fix this?' "
Article 2: Jammers