Dogs beat machines at detecting IEDs

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - 11:48 AM Share

Readers of this blog won't be surprised to learn that, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch puts it, "Dogs turn out to be best at finding IEDs."

This isn't just a point to warm Rebecca's heart. There are some serious lessons to be learned from the more than $15 billion (that's a B, fellas) the Pentagon spent on its effort to defeat IEDs technologically. But it turns out that the two most dependable ways to counter the roadside bombs are both warm-blooded. The first is the dog, to detect bombs planted. The second is putting soldiers who have a bit of Arabic out in an outpost in a neighborhood for weeks at a time and protecting people sufficiently that they feel safe pointing out to soldiers who is planting the bombs or where they are. As an Iraqi once put it to a U.S. Army commander in Ramadi, we all knew who the insurgents were, we just couldn't tell you and expect to live.

I think there probably is a good dissertation to be done by someone out there about how most of that $15 billion got wasted here.

U.S. Army

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HUNTER

5:09 PM ET

November 23, 2010

Appreciate the dogs

...and I appreciate the value of a COIN focus with boots in the villages to earn respect and intellience from the locals.

That said, Dogs can't outrun a convoy of 44 trucks for 200 miles at 45+ mph in one leg of a potential multi-leg trip. So I (and many others) are thankful for EWO systems like CREW, DUKE, CVRJ, etc.

Over 2.5 million guntruck miles covered in 9 months, 1 IED exploded, 1 found and cleared.

JPWREL

6:07 PM ET

November 23, 2010

For those of us that live

For those of us that live down on the US-Mexico border we are thankful for the well trained dogs that provide the critical element for the USBP in detecting almost all their vehicle drug smuggling suspects. In a way a battered pick-up truck stashed with drugs is sort of an IED in its own right.

Good bow-wow's all.

WAKE

6:35 PM ET

November 23, 2010

$15B is only part of the story

JIEDDO alone has had around $19B appropriated to date. The President's FY11 request for JIEDDO (which is likely to be nearly fully funded if Congress gets around to a defense appropriations bill) would put JIEDDO at >$22B since its inception.

That doesn't count the many billions spent on MRAPs and M-ATVs, which were largely paid for from non-JIEDDO accounts. Nor does it include many untold billions spent within the individual Services on service-specific IED technology needs and wants. DOD can't even total up how much it has spent on counter-IED efforts.

Don't get me wrong, counter-IED is an important fight--but I'm forced to wonder if we're too focused on high-tech when low-tech or no-tech might be just as effective. Particularly if we're thinking long-term.

HUCKLEBERRY

6:44 PM ET

November 23, 2010

Who cleans up after them?

$15B would buy a lot of dog chow...

CAPT. MONKEY

12:44 PM ET

November 24, 2010

Not that great...

Tom-
You're echoing LTG Oates of JIEDDO. While dogs are good, they're not that great at finding IEDs. A battalion in RC-East (arguably the best unit at finding IEDs in Afghanistan with a find rate hovering around 80%--despite facing the Haqqani network in some of its favorite stomping grounds) has found nearly 200 IEDs. Dogs, in a sampling of 65 missions, had a success rate around 15% (Dog Finds / (Total IEDs found + IED strikes).

Add in the fact that you have to constantly test and certify the animal, the fact that it can only work so often, it can't work in high heat, etc. It all adds up to bunk and a waste of tax payer money.

We are trusting the lives of our marines and soldiers to an animal that can't actually say, "You know what, Tom? I'm not feeling it today."

I can GUARANTEE significantly better results (if I were a betting man I'd take the 80% odds vs the 15%).

I agree that dogs are better than pumping money into the next, fancy piece of technology--but now we're just turning dogs into that next piece of technology. Just saying...

GRANT

9:48 PM ET

November 24, 2010

Dogs are indeed useful but we

Dogs are indeed useful but we have to remember that they have their limits. What if dogs are tracking bombs by smelling commonly used chemicals and a terrorist were to change using materials? For the time being their natural senses are indispensable but we can't presume them any more irreplaceable than the valiant war horse.

JAYLEMEUX

11:51 PM ET

November 24, 2010

JIEDDO Dissertation

The author can start by moseying to the Wikileaks Iraq War Logs at http://warlogs.wikileaks.org/iraq/diarydig (Oh my god, those useless things?!?) and searching for "active ECM" to see how many IEDs detonated on patrols equipped with that cost-and-effectiveness-are-no-objects wonderweapon.