April 24, 2008
Military.com|by Christian Lowe
The U.S. has taken the unprecedented -- and some would say questionable -- step of selling some of its most sophisticated counter-IED technology to the Iraqi government, equipping specialized police, military and interior ministry troops with electronic systems designed to detonate roadside bombs and jam triggering signals.
Officials from Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq announced April 20 that its foreign military sales office had sold the Iraqis 411 Lockheed Martin-built "Symphony" counter-IED systems. A few of the Symphony systems are already up and running on Iraqi government vehicles, the command said, with the rest due to be installed by the end of the summer.
"This system will afford the Iraqi security forces long-term, independent counter-IED protection and relieves coalition troops from this responsibility so the latter may perform other tasks," said Army Lt. Col. Will Flucker, the command's Symphony program manager, in an April 20 release. "This system is a critical part of security transition from the coalition forces to the government of Iraq and integral to developing [Iraqi security forces] into a long-term partner in the global war on terror."
But some might see handing over America's most sophisticated and top secret counter-IED technology to Iraqi ministries, whose loyalty to Baghdad is less than certain, as extremely risky. Electronic jammers like the Symphony have saved American lives in a war where the roadside bomb is the number-one killer, and the possibility that an Iraqi official could hand over the technology to an insurgent or unfriendly government is all too real.
"You have to assume that about the third one that we ship over there is going to go straight out the back door," said John Pike, director of the Globalsecurity.org, a Washington-area defense research group. "We have a fundamental dilemma here in trying to indigenize these security forces."
http://www.military.com/news/article/us-sells-secret-anti-ied-tech-to-iraq.htmlbetcha it won't be too long before this technology is rendered obsolete thanks to this.
