WASHINGTON Ð U.S. forces could have done more to deter the widespread looting and to maintain security in Iraq while avoiding a lot of unnecessary deaths of Americans and innocent Iraqis if they had been equipped with available nonlethal devices, a blue-ribbon panel reported Thursday.
The panel recommended formation of a high-level joint office in the Pentagon to push nonlethal weapons, or NLW, programs and urged a tenfold increase in the current funding to develop and produce such equipment.
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The task force of former military and national security officials saw even more promise in advanced systems under development, including directed energy devices that can stop the engine of a car or boat, can temporarily incapacitate people or produce the sensation of intense heat without burning skin. Retired Marine Gen. Paul X. Kelley, the other co-chairman, said devices to shut off a motor could have avoided the deadly suicide bombings of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen by a small boat and of the Marine barracks in Lebanon by a truck. Kelley was Mar ine Corps commandant when 241 Americans died in the 1983 Beirut bombing.
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Marine Corps officials have explored the use of nonlethal devices for more than a decade. A Marine force used some NLW capability to protect the 1995 withdrawal of U.N. troops from Somalia without a casualty, the task force noted. A Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate was established in 1997 at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., commanded by a Marine colonel. Its budget has increased slowly to $43 million this year, with a proposed increase of $8.2 million next year. But the task force recommended creation of a greatly expanded office with a general officer in charge and an annual budget of up to $400 million.
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