"The Army isn't saying no to this. They are just saying yes very, very slowly, and it's a tragedy," said a former senior Pentagon official who was involved in the development of the JIN last year and who requested anonymity because he feared that revealing his identity might endanger the future of the program.
The task force has been credited with developing various strategies to combat the IED threat, such as changing military tactics and equipping troops with electronic jammers that prevent insurgents from detonating the makeshift bombs.
All this, top Pentagon officials say, has already reduced the threat of roadside bombs in Iraq.
"Between the increase in armor and the changes in tactics, techniques and procedures that we've employed, the number of attacks
But, partly as a result of continuing complaints from commanders in the field, a month later the Pentagon moved to expand the authority and the scope of the task force. Critics had argued that under Votel, a one-star general, the task force did not have enough influence to push other government agencies such as the CIA, FBI and Energy Department to commit personnel and resources to the effort.
Consequently, the Pentagon announced in December that retired four-star Army Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs would assume control of an expanded task force that might ultimately number more than 350 people. The Pentagon also plans to triple the organization's budget to approximately $3.5 billion per year.
The Joint IED Neutralizer first came to the attention of senior Pentagon leaders last spring, after Votel returned from a demonstration of an early version and wrote an e-mail message to his staff. In the message, he called the JIN a "highly innovative system" that should be tested and prepared for "rapid insertion into the theater."
Shortly afterward, on April 30, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz wrote a memo about the JIN that went to Pace, then the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with Gen. Richard A. Cody, the vice chief of staff of the Army, and to the Pentagon's top civilian official in charge of weapons acquisition.
Wolfowitz's memo said the JIN had the potential to "dramatically alter the balance of power on IEDs," and recommended that the Pentagon immediately invest $30 million in the system to ramp up production and begin testing in Iraq.
