Roadside Bombs & IEDs (catch all)

[redbullets]

Oh, I have no presumptions about the macro-rationality of donor assistance!

It does seem to me there are some aspects in which demining may have a certain "strategic" significance. Given the frequency with which transport routes, abandoned housing, economic infrastructure, etc. is mined, demining becomes essential for a range of related imperatives (refugee return, agricultural production, economic growth). Moreover, mines and UXO can be a major source of explosives, and so there is a military/counterterrorism implication here too.

None of which invalidates looking at IEDs as posing different sorts of challenges, as you propose to do.

My organization has conducted something called Landmine Impact Surveys for several years - these efforts werre actually the original reason our team was brought together in late-1998. Our last serious one was in 13 of Iraq's 18 governorates. For the most part, the major contaminated countries with real need for these expensive, time-consuming projects have been completed or are underway. I think there's a rathional tendency now to exampine the same kind of infratructure blockages/impacts that these surveys specifically look at, and that you mention above, but cull the data from a wider variety (read: cheaper) range of alternate sources, and there are more and more tools out there that allow this.

Here is the first of the four principles of humanitarian response to IEDs that I developed, and that I think addresses your point about explosives supply:

1. In most, if not all countries where IEDs are employed, Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) on former or current battlefields are a foundational component of the IED assembly line. Humanitarian efforts to eliminate landmines, UXO and Abandoned and Hazardous Ordnance (AO/HO) should include the impacts of IEDs upon civilians when prioritizing ERW mitigation. IEDs that are “fed” by abandoned caches, depots and other ERW sources are NOT a threat distinct from currently accepted HMA parameters.

Cheers,

[Stan]

Hi Joe !

Here is the first of the four principles of humanitarian response to IEDs that I developed, and that I think addresses your point about explosives supply:

1. In most, if not all countries where IEDs are employed, Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) on former or current battlefields are a foundational component of the IED assembly line. Humanitarian efforts to eliminate landmines, UXO and Abandoned and Hazardous Ordnance (AO/HO) should include the impacts of IEDs upon civilians when prioritizing ERW mitigation. IEDs that are “fed” by abandoned caches, depots and other ERW sources are NOT a threat distinct from currently accepted HMA parameters.

Cheers,

Well put ! Oddly enough, we've known this for some time, but never seemed to get the HDO community to address and recognize the direct correlation between UXO and IEDs. Although our IED incidences have decreased over the last 10 years, I had hoped to address IEDs in my future country plans for funding considerations instead of finding injured or maimed children’s pictures

Hmmm, are you still working on the other 3 points or do you intend to feed those to us once per day

[redbullets]

Thanks, Stan. I'll e-mail the others to you - still a bit protective of them as I want to get in a good position with them to tweak the humanitarian community for having failed to address the issue.

I'm sure if we can cull the data around targets even partially, we can begin to make assessments concerning infrastructure impacts/damage in addition to the victimization trends, rates, and public health system impacts and needs. Anyway, if we can get the data in some viable form beyond the daily media hyperbole, maybe we can make something happen.

There's a very practical element to this that the Humanitarian Mine Action community should consider. Funding specifically aimed at demining/EOD is on the decline, and increasingly focus is being placed on mainstreaming (linking demining to overarching relief/development/infrasructure programs) and the holistic, all-conventional-weapons approach. That ordnance sources feed IED production, and subsequent IED use produces civlian casualties, should add some impetus toward keeping humanitarian demining/EOD capacities a bit more vibrant than might have been the future outcome.

Cheers,