BREECHING/TACTICAL OPS
JIEDDO: Counter-IED Technology &
Information for the EOD Community
By Michael Coderre
The Joint Improvised Explosive De-
vice Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) is
the Department of Defense’s lead coun-
ter-IED entity, including IED-related
support to the U.S. military’s explosives
ordnance disposal (EOD) community.
Working hand-in-hand with military,
government, academic, industry and in-
ternational partners, JIEDDO leverages
all available resources to deliver emerg-
ing capabilities and critical information
to EOD technicians combating IEDs in
Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.
JIEDDO divides its counter-IED
mission along three lines of operation:
Attack the Network, Defeat the Device
and Train the Force. Defeat the Device,
which most directly supports the EOD
community, is the organization’s line of
operation which includes actions and ac-
tivities to detect IEDs, neutralize the de-
vices before they can be detonated and
mitigate the effects of IED detonation at
the point of attack.
JIEDDO’s lead component for Defeat
the Device support to the EOD com-
munity is the Technology Requirement
and Integration Division (TRID). Led by
Capt. Frank Morneau until August 2009,
TRID maintains a long record of support
to EOD technicians.
TRID’s connections to the EOD
community run all the way up to its lead-
ership. Morneau, is a 26-year veteran of
the Navy, and deeply connected to the
Navy’s EOD community.
His leadership at JIEDDO came
from a culmination of experience as a
Navy master EOD officer, following as-
signments to the Navy’s EOD Mobile
Units SIX and EIGHT, EOD Group Two
and Task Force 56 (Navy Expeditionary
Combat Forces Central).
Morneau’s units – composed of
combat-ready EOD sailors – received
commendations for missions during Op-
eration Enduring Freedom, Operation
25 — September/October 2009
Joint Forces, Determined Response and
Operation Iraqi Freedom, supporting
both European Command and Central
Command.
“They’re not going to sell real estate
today. They’re not going to check on
the stock market. By the end of the day,
they will put their lives in danger again
and again to make sure the defense of
this country is forthright to them,” said
Morneau, as he handed over command
of EOD Group Two following his assign-
ment to JIEDDO. “By the end of the day,
some of them will render safe nearly 40
IEDs.”
Morneau was selected by the Navy
for promotion to Rear Admiral (Lower
Half ) in June 2009 and left the organi-
zation to assume command elsewhere
in August 2009. His successor will likely
have the same connections to the EOD
community, as the position is billeted for
an O-6 grade Navy EOD officer.
From capabilities like the Ahura
handheld homemade explosives (HME)
detector and FIDO, the chemical “sniff-
er” developed to help EOD robots detect
IEDs, TRID has helped develop, fund
and field the technologies successfully
used today by EOD technicians.
Beyond technical, device-defeat ca-
pabilities, JIEDDO provides continuous
support and information to the EOD
community through its development
of the Weapons Technical Intelligence
(WTI) program.
Weaving together forensic and tech-
nical analysis of IEDs to target insurgent,
terrorist and criminal networks, WTI
provides critical information to U.S. and
international forces in Iraq and Afghani-
stan.
“WTI is a blended capability for the
United States and its allies in the coun-
ter-IED fight,” said Lt. Col. Mark Wick-
ham, a United Kingdom officer serving
as JIEDDO’s WTI expert. “It brings non-
traditional intelligence partners into the
process and makes information fusion
possible.”
The collection process begins on the
battlefield, as units in Iraq and Afghani-
stan discover or recover IEDs at a tacti-
cal level. Once detected, the devices are
rendered safe by EOD teams and initial
data is gathered by a specialized weap-
ons intelligence team (WIT).
“At each phase, information is gath-
ered to build a common picture of en-
emy capabilities, inform commanders of
new developments and support material
developers in building necessary coun-
termeasures,” continued Wickham. “This
starts as soon as EOD and WIT teams
begin exploiting a device.”
Upon initial examination, the de-
vices are sent to battlefield labs called
Combined Explosives Exploitation Cells
(CEXC) for immediate, in-depth foren-
sic and technical analysis. The informa-
tion collected is key to providing evi-
dentiary support to the prosecution of
bomb-makers, leading Iraq’s CEXC and
counter-IED Task Force Troy to begin
training Iraqi security forces on the WTI
process.
Finally, the devices are sent to gov-
ernment and military forensics labs
across the globe for more detailed,
national-level analysis. Much of this in-
formation is indexed and collected by
the FBI-led Terrorist Explosives Device
Analytical Center (TEDAC) and shared
with international partners.
The forensic and technical data is
also used by the execution arm of JIED-
DO’s counter-IED training support, the
Joint Center of Excellence (JCOE). Lo-
cated at the Army’s National Training
Center (NTC) in Fort Irwin, CA, the
JCOE together with the NTC’s Opera-
tions Group, uses the data to replicate
training versions of devices found in the-
ater down to the smallest detail but the
active explosive.
JIEDDO has more than doubled its
investment in WTI since 2008, provid-
ing over $100 million for the current
fiscal year under the Attack the Net-
work line of operation. This investment
includes funding for the forward-based
CEXC labs and support of the FBI’s TE-
DAC database.
JIEDDO has also worked to make
its capabilities, including capability de-
velopments and WTI, available to the
largest cross-section of Soldiers, Sailors,
Airmen and Marines. Any military, gov-
ernment or contractor EOD expert with
a Common Access Card (CAC) can log
into the Knowledge & Information Fu-
sion Exchange (KnIFE).
27 — September/October 2009
Funded by JIEDDO and operated by
the U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJF-
COM), KnIFE connects data from mul-
tiple agencies and organizations such
as JIEDDO with IED-related informa-
tion from units in-theater. This results
in best practices that are informed not
only from an institutional level, but rein-
forced by real-world experience.
From tips on disrupting insurgent
IED networks to identifying unexploded
ordnance, KnIFE’s collection of counter-
IED lessons learned, consolidates the lat-
est information from the Marine Corps
Center for Lessons Learned (MCCLL),
the Center for Army Lessons Learned
(CALL), Iraq’s Combined Joint Task
Force (CJTF) Troy and Afghanistan’s
CJTF Paladin.
These tactical insights drawn from
JIEDDO personnel returning from the-
ater to an emphasis on understanding
current enemy IED technical capabili-
ties, KnIFE enables JIEDDO to push
critical information to warfighters as the
organization receives it.
JIEDDO: https://www.jieddo.dod.mil
KNIFE: https://knife.jfcom.mil
Michael Coderre is a writer with the Joint
IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).