Meigs: IED threat coming under control

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Meigs: IED threat coming under control
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, November 16, 2007

ARLINGTON, Va. — The threat posed by improvised explosive devices will persist but be brought under control in the next couple of years, said the outgoing head of the Joint IED Defeat Organization.

“I think in another couple of years, we’ll have a handle on it. We won’t have it solved or won, but we’ll have it controlled. But it’s not going to go away,” said retired Gen. Montgomery Meigs in an interview Wednesday.

Meigs, former commander of U.S. forces in Europe, explained that the number of IEDs will drop in the future and U.S. and other coalition forces will be better equipped to find and deal with IEDs before they go off, meaning IEDs will “diminish as a major strategic concern.”

But Meigs, who is leaving JIEDDO at the end of the month, added a note of caution to his comments.

“When I say under control, I can’t tell you what degree,” he said. “I just feel confident if we keep applying the techniques that we’re applying, we’re going to get a heck of a lot better at this game.”

Asked about Meigs’ comments, an outside expert said he expects IEDs to remain a threat, but he does not believe U.S. forces will encounter the bombs again with the same scale as they have in Iraq.


Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50300