Officer Says US Sharing IED Intel

An officer with an Army National Guard unit responsible for thwarting IEDs in Afghanistan recently denied claims that the U.S. will not share with its allies the methods it uses to find and neutralize the roadside explosives that have been responsible for a large percentage of casualties.

Lt. Col. Tony Adrian, commander of the 203rd Engineer Battalion of the Missouri Army National Guard, told Military.com during a bloggers roundtable discussion that whatever U.S. forces use in detecting IEDs is available to allies, as well.

"There is nothing we have that is not available to them," Adrian said during the roundtable via telephone link-up from Afghanistan. "Maybe their nations don't care to purchase the equipment. It is expensive, but nothing super secretive."

The allegation that the U.S. does not share what it knows or has with coalition partners was first made earlier this month by U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz after he retired. Metz had been director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization since 2007. The joint Defense Department agency was responsible for finding ways to reduce or eliminate the effects of IEDs being used against U.S. and coalition forces.

"We're very timid and slow at changing our disclosure and information sharing," Metz said on Jan. 11. "The commanders in the field are coming back to Washington with a very clear message that we've got to figure out this information sharing." Metz said the Pentagon's reluctance to share information with allies is based on concern for revealing sources or giving the enemy any insights into secret technologies.

Metz also said the U.S. should share the actual information it has, even if it does not want to provide source information.

While there have not been reports yet of increased or improved technology or intelligence sharing between the U.S. and its coalition partners, the British have decided to buy additional equipment  for detecting and countering IEDs.

According to the German-based online journal Defpro.com, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced earlier this month that his country would pump an additional 150 million British pounds [about $240 million] into IED countermeasures in Afghanistan. That figure includes money to buy more hand-held mine detectors. The British already allocated 12 million pounds for additional explosive disposal robots, of which it now has 30 in Afghanistan, according to Defpro.com.

Among the equipment the 203rd Engineer Battalion uses in Afghanistan are MRAPs, ground-penetrating radar, electrical jamming devices, optics with thermal imaging, and human observation --- seeing where the earth has been disturbed by digging and observing how civilians in the area behave, Adrian said.

Adrian told Military.com that his unit --- nicknamed the Houn' Dawgs --- has found and cleared nearly 75 percent of the IEDs it has encountered in the region, an area near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that he said is about the size of West Virginia.

He said that winter is typically a "slow season" for IEDs in most areas, but as the weather improves that will change.