President requests boost for IED fund

WASHINGTON -- President Bush yesterday asked Congress for an additional $6.4 billion to develop ways of defeating roadside bombs in Iraq -- nearly double what has been provided since 2003 -- in the hopes of reviving an effort once billed as the "Manhattan Project" of the war but which has failed to stop the insurgents' weapon of choice from becoming even deadlier.

The special Pentagon office created to tackle the roadside bombs, which have killed more than half of all US troops, would receive $2.4 billion for the remainder of this fiscal year and an additional $4 billion for the year that begins Oct. 1, according to Pentagon budget documents made public yesterday.

The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization -- which some lawmakers and defense analysts believe has wasted money and time -- has received $6.7 billion in taxpayer dollars since 2003, for the sole purpose of eliminating the threat of so-called improvised explosive devices.

Insurgents plant the low-tech bombs along roads and detonate them with cell phones, remote control devices, and other commonly available items.

The program has ballooned into a massive organization employing thousands of private contractors, and is based in a northern Virginia office complex where some of the largest defense industry firms have their Washington operations. Critics say the program relies too much on expensive, high-tech solutions -- developed by the defense industry -- to defeat a low-tech weapon instead of focusing on disrupting the so-called "kill chain" of explosives suppliers, bomb builders, and planters.

The request for more funding was part of the largest request for defense spending in more than half a century. It includes $481.7 billion to fund the Pentagon in fiscal year 2008, an 11 percent increase over last year to help increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 troops, repair and replace worn-out ground vehicles and aircraft, and increase benefits to troops and their families.

For the first time, the president also included predicted war costs in the annual budget, asking for $141.7 billion to cover the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the wider war on terrorism in 2008.

If the full package is approved by Congress, it "would bring total DoD funding to its highest level in real terms since [fiscal year] 1946," said Steve Kosiak, a defense budget specialist at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "Total funding for DoD would surpass the peak years of the Korean and Vietnam wars."

Separately, Bush also asked for $93.4 billion in emergency spending to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars through the remainder of 2007, on top of $70 billion previously provided by Congress. Administration officials said they believed it will be the last "emergency" budget request for the war and that all future expenses will be folded into the traditional defense budget.

To justify the budget increase for combating explosive devices , the Defense Department said in a report yesterday that roadside bombs are "a particularly challenging threat to US and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan." During the past year, according to the report, "the enemy has increasingly used IEDs as their primary, and most effective, weapon of choice to exploit the vulnerabilities of militarily superior coalition forces."

In addition to focusing on ways to neutralize the explosives , the agency plans to apply far more of its resources to identifying means to track the bombers, intercept them, and disrupt their supply chain, according to the report.

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.