Since the Iraq insurgency started, I must have heard a thousand idea for beating roadside bombs — from lightning guns to radio-controlled toys to mine-mashers to microwave blasts to new roads to just plain walking.
But this NPR report reveals a brand new tactic for dealing with deep-buried improvised explosives: fly a B-1 overhead, and bomb the living crap out of the road itself. Detonate all those weapons, in other words, before the insurgents do.
It's all part of an absolutely ginormous U.S. assault on Sunni insurgent strongholds north and south of Baghdad — seven battalions, in an region that was once patrolled by just 500 soldiers, Phil Carter points out. Phil spent a year where all those troops are now. He's confident that American forces can kick around any insurgents they find there. But he's still pessimistic about how far this war can move beyond wack-a-mole. Or bomb-a-road.
But this NPR report reveals a brand new tactic for dealing with deep-buried improvised explosives: fly a B-1 overhead, and bomb the living crap out of the road itself. Detonate all those weapons, in other words, before the insurgents do.
It's all part of an absolutely ginormous U.S. assault on Sunni insurgent strongholds north and south of Baghdad — seven battalions, in an region that was once patrolled by just 500 soldiers, Phil Carter points out. Phil spent a year where all those troops are now. He's confident that American forces can kick around any insurgents they find there. But he's still pessimistic about how far this war can move beyond wack-a-mole. Or bomb-a-road.
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