"Explosively Formed Projectiles" - Barbara Starr, Pentagon Correspondent

[Avalux]

Every morning on CNN, Ms. Starr reports from the Pentagon to give us the latest military news out of Iraq. This morning, she told us of a new kind of IED, an Explosively Formed Projectile - "quite complicated and very deadly" she went on to say, able to pierce through armored vehicles. They are being smuggled across the border into Iraq by Iranians. They're so sophisticated, only Iran could be making them.

When asked if there was proof of such, Barbara said "yes, definitely", the CIA had that proof. Oh really? Of course there was no follow-up, no elaboration.

I'm not buying the Pentagon's bullshit; I want to see the proof. This is all reminding me way too much of the supposed intelligence that took us into Iraq and Ms. Starr is doing nothing more than reading what the Pentagon Propaganda Office hands her to read every morning. And this morning, she threw out a catchy new phrase to describe a weapon intended to link Iran to attacks on our troops.

Good job Barbara; you serve your masters well.

[mmonk]

1. The problem is you can't take a dishonest government's word.

It's too bad to not know what is real or a lie anymore.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. When the Bush admin needs disinfo spread around, they go to her...

...she's lazy and rarely questions anything.:thumbsdown:

[HereSince1628]

3. Isn't this another way to say shaped-charge? Don't most armor piercing

shells melt their way in and spew the explosively formed molten mass all around the inside of their target? Is this just an attempt to exploit pubic ignorance in order to make us think there is something more going on than actually is? To make us believe that a national military force like IRAN is at work in Iraq?

[magellan]

4. I don't know if I saw the same report this morning

...but I remember some woman blathering on about "sophisticated weapons" of various description that were seized from the Iranian consulate in Irbil when its people were detained, along with maps of Iraq.

All they showed in the tossed consulate office was one map. No weapons.

Is it strange for diplomats to have a map of their host country in their office? Or -- here's the better question -- isn't it strange for BushCo to claim to have seized weapons and NOT SHOW THEM?

[hobbit709]

5. What crap

So the garden variety homemade IED haven't been good enough? The thousands of tons of unguarded munitions and explosives because we had to guard the OIL ministry didn't have the power to blow up everything on the road for the last 4 years. And does anyone really believe the Shia government in Iran is going to help the Sunni insurgents?

[Junkdrawer]

6. So, just when Dubya is rattling as many sabers as he owns to get Iran...

to jump and give him a pretext for a bombing campaign, Iran chooses to accommodate him by smuggling in arms?

Yeah, sure... :eyes:

[bigtree]

7. she don't need no stinkin proof

she's just the Pentagon's media mouthpiece

[baldguy]

8. Is it still an "IED" if its complicated to manufacture?

Or is it an "IED" simply because they are used against US forces?

[RC]

16. The answer is #2

Both meanings

[DerBeppo]

21. don't think so.

the "I" in IED is improvised, meaning bombs made from stuff not typically used for making bombs. These EFPs sound like something more complicated and singular in use.

[spanone]

9. Bullshit. I don't believe a fucking word they say. Not a fucking word.

[rocktivity]

10. Are they pointed at L.A. and deployable within 45 minutes?

:boring:
rocknation

[Canuckistanian]

12. It's even worse - a petting zoo in Fargo, N.D.

Bastards!

[KittyWampus]

17. Thanks for the laugh. Great way to start the morning-

especially when we are surrounded by so much bs coming out of this maladministration.

[leftchick]

11. ms. starr is not a reporter

she is a reader of prepared pentagon statements that invariably turn out to be false. And yes this smells just like 2002.

[4nic8em]

13. This must be true...

I hear that there is a little hole on the side of this device where you pour in the yellowcake and plug it with a cork.

[frogcycle]

14. that story may be 98% spin

but i have noticed a trend toward larger numbers killed per incident. Whereas it used to be an IED might kill one or two and maim the rest, now its more common for the entire Humvee crew to get taken out. That does NOT say Iran is behind it, but the "enemy" is developing improved methods.

[hobbit709]

15. Using bigger IEDs

Thought about what happens when a 155mm shell is buried in the road pointing up and detonated under a Humvee? Not much left. The "insurgents" were taking out tanks with these and if it will penetrate a tank it will take out anything else on the road.

[LanternWaste]

18. Ummm.... correct me if I'm wrong

Ummm.... correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't an Explosively Formed Projectiles just a fancy-schmancy way of saying "shell"? As in, M-1 shell? 105mm shell? Or some such...?

[Avalux]

19. Yep - but you know how they are with making up new phrases -

all part of the propaganda. Barbara did her best to make it sound like they were some new incredibly difficult to make weapon - therefore, only Iran could do it. :eyes:

[Little Wing]

20. What, did we retire "shaped charge" ?

Idiots

[jmowreader]

23. This is a little more complex than a shaped charge

Just a little, though.

The basic shaped charge consists of a block of C-4 with a funnel-shaped hollow in one end. You set it off, the C-4 begins to burn rapidly, and a jet of plasma forms at the hollowed-out end. Said plasma goes forth to cut a hole in the target.

The problem with just a shaped charge is that it needs to be pressed up against the target to work--you've got to shoot it at the tank with a rocket or something. Therefore, what I THINK they're doing here is scrounging up an old piece of cast-iron pipe, shoving some explosive in the bottom as a propellant charge and rigging the shaped charge with an impact fuse. Basically, a single-use mortar with no fins on the round.

There is a term "economic tradeoff" when it comes to blowing shit up. If you can blow up a $5 million tank with a $500 round, that's a good economic tradeoff. If it requires a $10 million round to blow up one $5 million tank, you'd want to very carefully choose the tanks you blow up--waiting until a battalion of tanks (31 vehicles) are going down a narrow road cut into the side of a mountain before you pop the front and back tanks in the convoy, so you can send infantry in to shoot the crews after they unass to help clear the roads. In this case, they stole the explosives in the first days of the occupation so they can do all this devastation for free!

[jmowreader]

22. Very deadly. Not overly complex to make.

If you can figure out how to make a shaped charge--anyone who's ever touched explosives in his or her life can--and how to make a field-expedient mortar, you can make this device. There are at least a thousand people on this message board who, without any additional training, could make this device right now. If you were ever in combat arms, you can do this, and many combat support troops can do it too.

Folks, listen close. QUIT calling these things Improvised Explosive Devices. They ARE NOT IMPROVISED!!!! The Iraqi insurgency has constructed, at tremendous expense, a series of landmine factories. We uncover one every so often. When you've got a production line, the things that come from it are not "improvised," they are manufactured.

Incidentally...didn't the CIA also have proof the Iraqis were making biological weapons in softsided trailers?