Pentagon seeks help from law enforcement on IEDs

WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (Reuters) A US law enforcement agency will train hundreds of military personnel to investigate explosion sites in Iraq and glean information about the roadside bombs that have proven deadly to US troops, the agency said today.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will train nearly 200 service members this year and at least that number in 2008 under a partnership with the military agency trying to counter improvised explosive devices, known as IEDs.

The Pentagon's move to tap law enforcement for expertise in explosives investigations is the latest in a series of steps the military has taken to counter IEDs -- responsible for 70 percent of casualties in Iraq.

So far, however, some analysts argue the military's efforts have been only marginally effective in defeating these home-made bombs.

''ATF, since our inception, has battled against violent crime in the United States,'' said Steven Beggs, chief of the bureau's explosives training branch. ''We employ a lot of tactics to put those bad guys in jail, to capture them, to solve crimes.'' ''The military knows that, and what's going on in theater right now, you can call it terrorism, insurgency, the bottom line, there's a lot of violent crime being committed there.'' The US military death toll in Iraq has climbed above 3,100. About 1,150 of those deaths were linked to IED attacks, according to statistics kept by the widely watched icasualties.org Web site.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said 70 per cent of casualties in the war were related to IEDs.

In recent weeks, the Pentagon has raised concerns about more sophisticated IEDs, and said the technology used for those lethal ''explosively formed projectiles'' comes from Iran. That type of IED is responsible for a small percentage of total IED-related casualties, Gates said.

Defense officials have declined to comment in any detail on efforts under way to detect and defeat the weapons.

Beggs also would not discuss specifically how ATF training would improve the military's ability to defeat IEDs. Broadly, he said it would allow them to ''better document and collect evidence in a fashion that's more efficient and quicker.'' But he said that detection and post-blast investigation training had already improved troops' ability to defeat IEDs.

''We are defeating more IEDs than are being deployed against coalition forces,'' he said.

REUTERS SBA RN0141