In explosives-filled Iraq, U.S. short on bomb teams

BALAD RUZ, Iraq — Fingertips fiddling with a joystick, boyish face glued to a screen, Kyle Churchill could have been a kid deep into a video game. But this was a dangerous business, in a deadly place, and the U.S. Army was depending on him.

A hundred yards away, at the end of a fiber-optic tether, Churchill's robot was examining a roadside bomb, sending video close-ups back to his armored Humvee. With the robot's "hand" poised, and Churchill at the control console's dials, he would soon begin the delicate job of disabling the device.

The 23-year-old explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) specialist had been in Iraq only a few weeks, but he was already an indispensable U.S. team member — an Air Force "blaster" on the Army front lines, a bomb-disposal expert in a country with plenty of bombs and too few experts.

Attacks by Iraqi insurgents using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) almost doubled last year, to 29 a day, leading President Bush last month to describe the remotely detonated bombs — buried on roadsides, disguised as rocks, hidden in debris — as "the principal threat to our troops."

But as the threat has escalated, the number of specialists dealing with it hasn't kept up.

The Army doesn't publicize such numbers, citing security concerns, but soldiers everywhere tell stories of "waiting for EOD," sitting exposed on Iraqi roads while overstretched teams scramble from place to place to disarm unexploded devices, either at a distance with robots, or by hand, dangerously close up, in more difficult cases.

"We had to wait 24 hours at one IED site for EOD to show up," Sgt. Robert Lewis of the Georgia National Guard's 48th Infantry Brigade told a reporter visiting his base in insurgent-filled western Iraq.

The Pentagon is working to close the gap.

"It's been recognized that we need more EOD personnel, and they are inbound to Iraq," Lt. Col. Bill Adamson, operations chief for a Defense Department anti-roadside-bomb task force, said in a Pentagon interview.

Both short-term and longer-term help is planned.

The Army last year made bomb disposal its No. 1 recruiting priority, doubling the bonus, to $40,000, paid to a recruit signing up for "blaster" training.

But basic bomb disposal training takes at least six months, and the need is immediate, particularly for more experienced, higher-skilled specialists. To help fill the gap, Air Force and Navy disposal teams are being flown in to back up Army ground operations.