Transcript

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Military Analyst Call lEDs
Dec. 6.2005 - OSD Public Aflails (2E556)

Transcriber: Murphy
ONBACKGROUND

Ms Baroer Hello folks irs Allson Barber We are ready to ge' -iianeo T r w o so much for
can ng in today Ithink you have me agenoa We,loope u p w n r ~ i sin to make
some remarks for us this mornng -or this afternoon, and mer. A e . ~ r.l u.ert0-
i
-Thank pi,. sir. for behg with us today.

Ms Barber And with mat we get stenea Please remember mi5 son background But we're

m
happy to tana oi,r Lesbons fata them and get bach rn you ortn any In ng in adddon toths
seer m e w 1
i ~ h a n k s f l l i s o In
n Iraq over 214 000 m9mDers of the Iraq Securty Forces are
engaged in operations to secure their country and prepare for tne Dec 15 e ectons The raqi
Ministry of Defensehas amd 100 battalions - Army. Specia Operations and Strategic
Infraswct-ire Pmtection -mat are in the fight today

And over one third of these battalions are leading operatonswith US. and other Coalition foites
in support.
Yesterday as anottiei inaicator of progress,the IraqiAir Force flew their first C 130 m SB on wltn
an all Iraq crew And elements of the IraqiArmy s frst batialon first brigade 9* D vision
completed their T 55 and BMP 1 (ED)g~nneryqualrficat o m in prowrat on for the r conduct of
operations in the western part of Iraq

Iraqi Ministry of Intenor forces are aso progressng wm over 112 000 members .n operations
units ranging from the well-~nown special poice oattalons, ofwhch there are 12 to border
forces, h ghway patrol dignitary protectionand civi nlewentionforces

Today, there are approximately73 000 local and piovindal PO ce whkn is aoout hart of what w 11
e v e n u ly oe req.irea throughout Ina country Each Iraqi unit nas a Coa ition transitionteam w t h
it ano, at 00th Ministry of Defenseen0 Ministry of Interior there are Coalition advisory teams
focdsd on strengthenng these national-levelorganlzalone

For me U S we have approx mately 156 000 on me gmUM in Iraq toaay Ths numDer Will Slav
at about tnis level through the (Dec 151elections Shortly after UM elections wd.1 transition as
many as fve br gades nearly s multeneausly so tne actual in-coi-niry numbersw 11 spike for a
short time in January until the outgoing units actually redeploy.

In addition to the U.S., other coalition partners have 21,000 personnelcommitted to operatiom in
Iraq.

AS we h e l the
~ Iraois olan and oremre for the uocomino elections, there am some very p-itihre
indicatoriof wlde-spiad voterparticipation. Still, security preparationsam ongoing, and them
are multiple operations ongoing in an effort to disrupt terrorists and other enemy forces from what
we believe will be an effortto interfere with the electoral process.
An0 to w sure there have been reports of threats and mtim onlion We have seen Iraqi Stttxnty
Forces anackeaacross me counw inch80 ng me attack on the police academy classroom M a y
in Baghdad.

But despite these attacks, Iraqi Security Forces continue to improve. There are occasional
setbacks, butthe progress is evident and momentum is building.

Operation Sayaid in the Euphrates River Valley is a good example of what can be accomplished
when Coalition and Iraq security forces work together. From November 26th until December 3rd.
from a1 Qaim to Hadithahto Ramadi, Iraqis and Coalition forces conducted coordinated,
s~mutlaneousowrations which resulted in the establishmentof muidvle outoos* from which the
Iraqi Security ~ b c e can
s now operate.

Together, Coalition forces and Iraqi Security Forces detained over 1,000, many resulting from tips
provided by local Iraqis.

Almost 300 weapons caches were dsawered BJI probably most mportantly.me people of tne
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Eupnrates River Va ey saw tneir forces Iraqi Security Forces operating aga nisi the terrorists
n this crbcal area of the west

The Euphrates River Valley remains a difficult area to secure, but through Operation Sayaid
Iraqis have made some notable progress. This type of progress is occurring across the COUW,
as every day Iraqi Security Forces march toward the day when they will be able to secure their
people and their nation.

Thanks.

Ms. Barber:And with m a t 1 w e ' l l open up to you to talk about the IED Task
Force

=okay. Alilson. Iassumeeverybody can hear me okay here.

Ms. Barber: Let me do a check real fast Is the volume okay for our folks on the call?

Voices. Yes. Yes. It's gooO.

.
Ms. Barber Thank vou.. sir.

=okay,
--
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great What I wanted todo =)dst take a co~pleminutes you saw. I suspect most
of you saw an announcementthai came out of publc affars naming reared four-star General
Montoomw MCIQSUnneo States Arrnv to take over as me new heaa of the Joint I m W SeO
~xp6sive~ e v i c e ~ a sForce.
k

And there's a couole reasons why we did this. But first of all. It'sclear to all of YOU, I suspect, as it
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s clear to us. that the smgie most signtcant threat that we face n theater and i say a m n o the
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worm, tH.1 particu arty n Iraq and we'l probaoly see more of in the future not probably we
know we w I -are tnese improvised exdoswe devices

Now what Iwanted to just tell you is is that you may not have heard this ever before, but Ilook at
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these lEDs it just happensto be a name 1 call them weapons of indiscriminatedestruction.
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And 1 think that it's important for and I'm not telling you we're changing the name ofthls task
force because evoybody understands what an IED or Us Imprmlsad explosivedevice Is but
Us used, and Us Mling a lot of civilians in additionto mltaly peisonnel.
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But the primary wurce of U S osualtkl. boh hjurba iddeaths. am from ÇIM 1 3 s And the
number dcMllan casualtiescontinues to hcrease, in particular In locationss J n as Iraq. but
obvouaty you've à ˆ Ãtmm baed In other countriesaroundthm world

The Joint IED Task F a x a. dong with tm Sewon and ill ot mD. .1dasignad to tam on tnm
end-to-end threat. And I'm not taking just about technologm, I am taskingabout lookingat IMl.
tÈctic technique* and pcoceck-r~,operationalanalyr. re~arctiand aevelopment, tmm's a
whole variety of things that we're uing here

Now abng wtti Monty Me gs coming on h a m on the 12" of Decemb, and ne'll be working full
tme on this particular job. we'm going to grow the IED Task Force from about 175-lsh.
somewhere In there. to almost 300 peope. And put of fte reason wny we'm doing this is we'm
going to open an improvisedçxptosivdevice center of excellence out at the NationalTrain ng
Center m Fort lwin, Calima. And this will help us synchronize. it will help us incgrte
tecnnotogy. mining ana concept aevopment ffnkly. with not only the NTC. but other training
centers for all dtha Service! around the country w that we in fact cm bring about the bÑ , ,
practice, the best quifunmt, the b e t technbque*. the beet tacticsthat we r a m Into the trimng
regimem an even more comprehTKive and coherent way.

So we broughtthat through the Service chiefs, we brought that thmgh a1 of the Servicesand
washed it through the leadershiphere in the Pentagon And this is all part of thb broader effort to
lmkat these evo ving threats in the mid- to bn@term. n addition to those that we're deaiing with
immeoiately

Just a reminder here Again I ud eno-toad Tha is mennt to be a defeat of me enHre IED
sylç ig> n We am lookingm j u t about anyming we can We w i t to mçksum 1d¥
mntmub and do even a bettor w t of a m beço r a c m amongst 811 of our troopx our force*
that am deployed, and d w otithe trainingend of hi!.

Now, for the sake of time, and I (mow you all want to ask some questions, I'm not going to go
through right here the htotory. Ican answer that in one of the questions, if you'd like, of the
evolutionof this task force. But we've done quite a bit.

We have significantlyremoveda lot of speed bumps, road blocks, whatever you want to call iL
We've given GeneralVotel in the form of directives signed by the deputy secretary quite a bit of
authority involvingcontractingup to $25 milliona m p for literally anythingwe need to execute
within the IED re&. -
Toe task force has expended In FY '05 $1.345 billionand again In FY '05 on IED initiativesand
them is a substantial increaseIn that for FY TO between wnat we've got funded mainly out of
supptementals from the Congress, and we're working tospend that in a very smart way

Ig.esc wth that. rather than me continuing on and talking amut what this adaptive, innovative
enemy is like and how we respond to thr. and also what initiativeswe've gotgoing on, and
taHdw about some of the success stonas let me #ustooenit uo ' for owsfcons Now I suspect
we're-going to gat part of that Is that reasonable i l l m i ?
 Ms. Barber Perfect.

=OK
Ms. Barber' That'sgreal Thank you, sir

=And i think we've got about 15 minutes left here. And that waywe'll have a good 15
minutes of questions.

Ms. Barber Great.

Over to you.

Ms. Barber: Thanks. And with that I'll open it up for questions, please.

Q: Allison Bob Maginnis. Questionon shape (7) charge that we saw General Webster over in the
3' I D H* showed us one that he'd recovered. Do we havea working solution in that regard.

I ~ eme justt say one thing - this si- before I here I'm
- Vou're wing to find that I don't like to talk abouttechnoloaiasthat defeat anvthinaam a
sumann'e officer mysef and meres an old expresson from Work Waf 11 thai 'LO& ups sin<
snips ' ana 1 m not q~ te frankly, interested in read ng a b o ~shape
t Charges non-snapecharges.
lechniqm and tecnnolwies mat oefaal these devces

Tnafs where I am And 1 pst aon t think us healthy for our folks because there's too mum that
n Internet meres too w c h mat gets distrmteu So I'm not going togat in toany
gets p ~ t o the
detans and neither 1s- on any of these types of oiscussmns

Even though you read it and somebody may show it to you, pu're going to find less and less of
this is going to be shared with you because too much of it gets put in the press And I need your
help fellows, because we lose people as a result of spreading some of this. This is a very reactive
enemy, and they use what thev read in the cress and interactively on the Internet to resoond. In
addition to watching our tactics. So it's very'important to us not to get into these details. Iam
sorry but we won't do it,

Ms. Barber: Next question?

0 Well z'. -it ~ e r q u e s ~ o

tnen
n i us on The 1 - 7 2 (ap) that went into the 9- Division I
h e a r o ly~that the 7-55 went thro~ghsuccessfu tan< gunnery, are wegongto fnd
those T " 5 LL i s d now7Than been almost two months nasn't it?

I ~ h i ^^H^^^^^^^^H
s Tnà 1.726 arrived lest month and nave been
n c w r a t e d n" I-2 ma. A r m Those crews nave not vet Man fullv Ira mad and through the
gunnery exercise similar to thione the T-55s have been. We fuBy expect that that will &cur, but I
don't have for you a timeiine when that will occur.

~ed -
n, gong back to me issue I know you a m Iwant to tairt about
technologies Can you te.1 us how youre organizingwith General Mags to get n w devabpmenis
O L ~nto trm field faster oet contracts none? Yo- mow we hear aoout effects-based180)
contracting and things like that but - are you turning DARPA on full blast? How are you going to
get this stuff out to the %Id fast?

We1 let me give you a couple of thoughts first I am going to let go mmu h a mdple
of these wrth yw. aso First of all. Itaked to you about tne line-nem adhonty that d n s s as the
neaa of the task force and that Genera Mags wid have to be able to s gn bp to $25 million
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contracts Tnere are a.so evan thcqn we have a continuing resolution going on nght now we -
 are making sure, like we do on a routine day-Way basis, that the coffers are always filled SO that
the IED task force can draw on moneywithout having to wait for the comptrollers to fill up some
bin. That's typically not normal in everythingwedo. So we've cut the timedown substantiallyto
about what when you process a requirementJoe?

~ U s u a l t wecan
y get it within about 13 days.

So what Iwould toll vnn is that's like iioht ennftd here in the Pentaaonto be able t o a d
G o u t to put aga nst almost any req~irem&tweneed in addition to that we nave r e m & d
a number of the hiirdesfor this to get washed m m g h me burningonce Ks sgnea oy-
I Tnat s wny this money gets squeezed out very rapidly And ifanything exceeds thai
tnresnold of S25 maim even in me short oeriod of lime- Joe 01 MonN Meos will oeaole to
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bring It in to the Deputy like thev have been doina and the Dewtv will p h k a l l authorize
~ the
expindiiure of that under his pe&nal signature, because he h i s the line-item authority to do
that. So there is no one in betweenthem. So that is a really fast-track mechanismof getting these
things out.

-you want to talk about any other additions?

-yes, sir. Thank you. Oneof the things-! think you raised a very good point there
about engaging the other Departmentof Defense, and quite honestly the other national assets in
this Particulareffort, and one of the things that we are doing, in fact, our first session here 1s on
Thursday, is we are sponsoring a national lab conference,where we have called In all the
Departmentof Defense. Departmentof Energy, the federally funded research and development
centers, to come in and (in a sense?) -whatwe're going to do in a cla3siied setting is bring their
scientists up to speed on where we are with the IED threal, inform them of how unltsare
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operating in Iraq and Afghanistan 1 might add and tell them where we need there help.

And this is the second time we've done this with the national jobs. And it was very, very fruitful
last time. and so this is how we reach out to these type of organizations.And of course, we have
a very good long-term effortwith them. We have stood up a joint lab board. Secretary England
has asked us to look at the mid- and long-term researchand developmentscience and
technology efforts associatedwith this, recognizing this is going to be a long-termthreat that we
are going to deal with. So we have leveraged those organizationsin that manner.

Let me just finally add that the other key partner out here with us is industry. One of the things we
are doing and we will be sponsoring In January downtownWashington is an industry conference,
where will bring members of industry in in both classified and unclassifiedsettings, and again,
bring them up to weed on where we are with the threat, how we am ooerating, and then where
we need their help to help us address current and future evolving threats.

Guys. if I could just add to the industry piece, you should not take from what Joesaid
that we haven't been dealing directly wtti industry. Let me just tell you that I have had folks like
IBM come in to see me, but other major companies like that, and when they talk to me, the single
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thing that Iwant them to work on is on IED defeat from an end-to-end perspective Northrup,
Ravtheon.all kinds of these wmoanies have come in to see me. thev oo In to see Joe Votel
constantly An0 we have tnem focusing in I n s area and have a w h o e k oe variety of in t atlves
sang ofi We don t just resinci this to u S ndustry and u S partners we re also working with
foreign partners who nave some fairly 0000 ideas and wno navedeahwKh thls In the past

Finally, we've also expanded this effort to bring a number of our federally funded research and
developmentoperations.The Institute for DefenseAnalysis has just conducted about an eight-
week study for us on operationsaspects, and they've supervisedtwo other FFRDCs (sp) that
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we've brought in to assist in that the Center for Naval Analysis CNA, and also RAND
Corporation.
 Ms. Barter Great. Nextquestion

0 This isGordon C-cullu 1have one thm I gela Ithe time from audiences And Ioon'l know that
tnis falls nto the tachnolog cal or into area that you prefer not to d scuss b-rt most Americana
am somewhat mystified that me success of the lED8 b0cai.w they have it in the r heads tMt
we're thetechnoogica ty supenor force and that the terrorists are not Do yo. all see thai these
gdyi are getting technological support from outside tne country or oo you thinit that m a t of thls
is an inoigenousoevelopment program?

I
Lei me answer it i n s way F rsi of a1 Ithink irs important Gordon, that you recognize
Inat these mprowsedexplos ve dev ces have been around in a vanety of ways for a very ang
time

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They am just in some cases they am anomer foim of a mine they are another form of a booby
trap A vehicleborne improvised explosive oedce dmng World War I1was a kamikaze We've
haa vehicle svatema that have been use0 as VOJ know in Bewit Northern Iceland Israel, and
many other l&atlons. So it isn't like these things am new.

Do we see some of the technologiescoming in from other country or other areas? Absolutely.
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And that's why and what Imean by other areas, we see this being proliferated on some of the
web sites.

Q Oh, okay. so that-in effect avlrtual technologicalsupport for these thugs that's global in
scope?
Exactly And mats wny you're seeing i s being mcred bty ternlive, and we're trying to
make sum that out folks are sensitive to not talk about the soacrfics of weamns the tvms of
weapons, the form of their effects, or any of that stuff, because thls stuff gets spread almost
instantly.

Q Yeah, Ican see that. Thank you

I ~ o u ' r welcome.
e

Ms. Barber: Next question, please.

Q. Admiral, Chuck Nash. Got a question about the makeupof the folks who are working In this
whole CID (7) task force. Is this a primaryJob?Is this their full focus? Or are a lot of these folks
working collateral duties?

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Let me say to you this way. Chuck, the purpose of this task force is their job is to wake
up every morning and work on this full time. no other collateral assignments: they are supDOsed
to go to bea every n ~ nworrying
t about what tne helltney d on1a&mplish d-nng me day Joe
Vote1 here has got very s gnificam personnelcontrolover the assignments he can expend People
. - - , how many times was somebodv
-that's Dart of these set of aulhonbes Joe orobab.~ .going
- to
transfeiyou, Joe, a delalier?

I T
many to count. -
=TOO many to count He's a Ranger, and he'd like to be back win the Rangers, but he's
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been dedicatedto this now. what two years now?

I ~ w and a ohalf years

-Two -
and a half years doing this. And this Is just about nothing else that I see that's
mom importantthan thls job. In fact, we joke with Joe, the Deputy and I, that ifwe weren't doing
 our jobs, we'd be doing his job, because that's how important we think this is. And that's the way
Bite task force Is supposed to deal with this.

So we want personnelstability, full-time dedication to it, and we want continuityand longevity in

the assignmenis. Joe?

I S r I think you've covered most of it Iwould yat edd that the most importantresource
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h a t we have in here - although we are taken care of very well witn our financial acpecte is the
people that we have wuking on the task force And we have been in a constant and consistent
seam for people who have expertise in the vamus areas that are Involved In this. and tney
res de not just in the Army but in Dieofterjoht SavlcesOK mere. and in some of our rehred
community as well. as we're seeing w h GeneralMeigs here

And we are reachingout toget the wry, very best people that we can, get them involvedin this
and then keep them involvedIn this so that we do preserve continuityof the effort

GUVS.one last comment on this narticutarama. You mav be intonatediust to read a little
mabout ~ k t Mags y tackgmnd but he web a book - I r n h e m at ~ a t o " ÃDeferm
§
UnkrMy. called SMa Ruins and Submanma Am Iknow it's milacte biX < you mad It. you'll
mmbh learn one of the masons wtiv wa hired nim to coma tuck and do thn in mdrtion to ram
being afour star, in addition to him having served as a combatant commander in Korea, In
addition to him commanding troops and targe formations and the rest. you'll see his analyticskills
and the rest, and mars one of the reasons we why brought him back So If you're interested, you
might pick that book up, you'll learn a few things

Ms. Barber Great. And we probably have time for one or two morequastions If there's anything
çtoon your mind on the call?

Q: Allison, one last question. Bob Maginnis. The IED task force on the ground in Iraq providing
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timely feedback on the most recent (Inaudible) are we capturing that and will that be linked in to
what Joe Volel Is doing them on theground In Fort Irwin and feed back right away? What's the
sort of senseoftimelinessand collectim.- exoertlse
. we've been able to dto In to over in Irw?

I ~ o -
o ~ o kbm. a is exactty right. AM the cornerstone of the *ole effort really are is the
forwardteams ihfll we have in Iran and Afo~nistiinwho we a t mere worion!~witti units.
gatheringinformation, helpingdi~eminatefirst within theater and then disseminatingbade here
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to us And we use a variety of means to do that simple soldier solutions like newslettersthat
can gat out very quickly to disseminate information in theater, and then of course all the way to
the use of the classifiednet thatwe h m availableto us to send informationstraightto the
combat training o,

Interestingly,Ihad an opcortunityto talk to Bob Cotien (so). the commander out at MTC. last
week. One of the things we are working is making sure that we get some of his observer
controllers embedded into our teams to help facilitate that process and move informationvery,
very quickly.

We hold ourselves to very high standards moving money, and we want to do the same thing with
moving good practicesas well That's a vary, very important aspact to what we're trying todo.

i might mentionone Imt thing. Ifilled to mention beforein including industry In (and) the
rest of it This Is now gowmment But we also are using a significant amount of the Joint Center
tor Operational Analysis lessons learned group that's down In Joint Forces Command in Norfolk,
my old command. They are working with these federally funded researchand development
operations, CNA, RANDand IDA. to helpdo the operationalanalysis on this W e .
Ms. Barber: Great And with that -
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Q: Chuck Nash. To follow up on that admiral the analysis piece to this.There am some
technologies out there that probably have non-kineticcollateral effects. And when you look at the
analysis, and moving forward with some of the new technologiesthat am presenting, rules of
engagement,things like that. could vou address how those will be develooed and then worked
into the training process?

I think the way todescribe that, Chuck, is that you'll see us work through conceptsout at
NTC, between them and places like the Yuma Proving Ground, where we put those together in a
way that wecan test them out, wecan train to them, and then we deploy

We've done some of lhat already. I should say Joe has done that with his IED task force, and has
deployed items to theater in thatfashion in using that basic construct already. Joe you want to
add anything to that?

NO. I think that's exactly the Idea. And Ithink (hat'sthe wwer of what we're trvino to
use the combat training centers 6 help us with. You know, each of the Services do have mmbat
training centers. They can provide expertise into this and so our intention is to work through those
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very type issues that you raised the rules of engagement, the escalation of force, other type
issues associated with these solutions in a trainino environmentso that we can provide not Only
good technologies, but a good concept of operatiis to the fielded force.

Ms. Barber. Great. And with lhat we'll close for today. Folks, thanks for calling in. Admiral, thank
you for your time.

h a n k you very much. Good talking to you guys.

(Kid)