Target Earmarks, Not Entitlements

As of Thursday, April 7, 2011

I read the article “GOP Appears Poised to Take on Entitlements.” Clearly, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are all in GOP sights. Congress should review the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO). Ever heard of it? Neither had I!

In 2006, the Pentagon created JIEDDO to research ways to reduce or eliminate roadside bombs in Iraq. The agency now has 1,900 employees and has spent nearly $17 billion. But it has failed to develop the ability to detect roadside bombs. The best detectors remain trained dogs, local handlers and soldiers themselves. Roadside bombs continue to be the single worst killer of soldiers. They killed 368 in Afghanistan last year, the highest annual total since 2001.

In addition, JIEDDO failed to collect data on its projects; spending went to programs not involved with its core mission; agency officials misreported $795 million in costs; there are six contractors for every government employee.

With this fiasco, why target entitlements? Why not earmarks? Or foreign aid? (See Earle Hightower’s letter, March 30.)

First-term Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) called for radical changes: Abolish the IRS and income tax; retain tax cuts for billionaires so they won’t shut down their charities; stop extending unemployment benefits, which discourage people from seeking new jobs. I agree that unemployment benefits have run on too long, but West’s desire to slash spending doesn’t include his district: He secured a $21 million grant for a new runway at the Fort Lauderdale airport. “Grant money is not pork,” West said. The government must first look at the billions of dollars wasted on JIEDDO and in foreign countries. Trillions of dollars have been appropriated and spent in Iraq to find nonexistent WMD’s and “rebuild” that country, and earmarks continue apparently unabated.

Doris Smith

Pinehurst

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pandora 2 years, 1 month ago

To Doris Smith and anyone else reading this post.

JIEDDO was created for some of the reasons you indicate above and im not here to argue the point of it being a low key organization and under the public's daily scrutiny. If you understand national security policy and practices, you will have a better understanding of how and why things like this come about and how they work. Its not that you are not entitled to know the gist of whats going on but if its public knowledge, it is no different then tipping your hand to your opponent. I have been deployed as a part of one of the sub-components of JIEDDO and know that I had a major roll in the contribution to the degradation of many bad people and their plans. Believe what you will but the mission of JIEDDO is crucial to the present and future of warfare. I dont like war. I dont like what it does to people, countries, and ways of life but if you done understand that special situations require special needs, you are so far gone, you must have been on vacation September 11th 2001 and not got the memo. Sorry to come off sarcastic but I dont want the readers to think what you are saying carries any weight due to your lack of insider knowledge. If you are an American, would you like the FBI to publish a weekly blog of who they are going after and the reason why? Of course not....thats silly. Why would you push to unfold the one organization who is tasked with saving American lives from the #1 killer of them? Have you ever felt the loss in your soul that someone died because you didnt stay at your task for another hour after working 7 days a week on 12hr shifts minimum for the last 6 months in crappy conditions away from your family? Let the war-fighters fight and go blog about justin beaper or something. We have bad people to deal with so you dont. If you want to help your country, help a homeless family or veteran or something but get out of the way of soldier safety. Your comments can and do kill Americans. Tell that to the family who gets the notification. Tell them that you didnt think the organization that was charged to stop an EFP from ripping their loved ones body apart was a good idea and cost to much money.

Darkwing 2 years, 1 month ago

Pandora, if we stipulate that the program is a good idea, that still does not prove that the program is worthwhile or accomplishing it's mission. With bureaucratic inertia, a failed agency can continue to grow and suck up m oney for a very long time without making any progress on it's mission. So, yes, I would tell that family the program was a waste that had to be shut down if I felt that to be the case. I'm active duty, so don't try to pull the soldier card on me. How many soldier safety initiatives have failed and been replaced now? And how many are still in business despite not working? Doris' comments cannot, do not, and will not kill Americans. It's called free speech, and that's part of what we fight for. That said, Doris, it's not a choice of entitilements or earmarks - earmarks are a tiny percentage of the budget. Entitlements are where the bulk of the money is. Yes, West is being hypocritical when he defends that earmakr as 'not pork', because that's exactly what it is. Yes, we need to rein in earmarks. No, that can't balance the budget. We have to cut entitlements to do that. Part of the problem is that you can't take an axe to the budget, except for a few small programs like NPR that you can justify scrapping. We need to keep those entitlements, so we need to use a scalpel to carve off bits of that budget that won't hamper the program, rather than chopping chunks off en masse and then finding that whole programs don't work because of funding for certain portions no longer existing. The problems are usually hidden, and don't pop out at you.

JIEDDOdoesntwork 2 years, 1 month ago

JIEDDO Director, LtC Oates stated in September 2010 that dogs are the best detecting device. But guess what, dogs get tired, thirsty, hot feet, wounded, and killed. Plus according to the Rand group, once a bomb goes off the air is so full of smells it takes 2- 3 days for the air to clear so a dog can work again.

A few weeks ago Oates said that JIEDDO is using a high performance device attached to airplanes that can zero in on the chemical smell of explosives.

Therefore, given his statement that dogs are the best and he has something new, then our military must be strapping a dog to the nose of a jet, then by the dog wagging its tail is how bombs are detected. I wonder how many millions this has and will continue to cost.

Worse, Oates states that dogs are to be trained and given to the Iraq and Afghan soldiers. Not a bad idea, but guess what, dogs are considered "dirty" in many of these sects, remember the pictures of prisoners in Iraq being terrified by dogs.

This is a classic example of attempting to solve a problem but not looking at the problem the "solution" solves.

I have met with the JIEDDO group. They do not have viable staff. During my meetings their technical officer knew nothing about wooden detonation devices used during vietnam, nor how roadblocks are handled, nor how to negate the transportation of IEDs. Most interesting is that this technical officer stated, "the best way to promote your ideas is to pass out brochures to soldiers at Baghdad bars.............!!!!!!!!!!

I mentioned this to my military advisers and they were totally shocked.

I approached my Senator to address this serious lack of knowledge and abuse of funding, and after several months JIEDDO stated "We have no record of meeting with me".

I learned via my congressional representative that to "lose" meeting notes with me is a standard Washington DC statement to minimize that they are at fault.

In addition, a senior DoD contact stated that JIEDDO changes its direction every week.

Facts are simple: JIEDDO spent almost $20,000,000,000 and has almost nothing to show for it. But its really congress' fault for there is no real oversight..........but then JIEDDO awards contracts to powerful members of congress' districts. Look up Murtha.

JIEDDO is a front for political abuse of power. JIEDDO officers award contracts, then become awarded firms "officers". I was told this by a senior EOD Officer. He stated that this is well known and that everyone is trying to get into JIEDDO for that reason.

Best to eliminate this group and let proper defense groups address needs.

I have notes to support my points.

buddysmith 2 years, 1 month ago

why dont we just bring home the troops from iraq and afghanistan and we wont have to worry about detecting roadside bombs(well until the terroists walk across our open borders and plant some here), seriously, why are we still there? unless we plan to stay in afghanistan forever, the taliban will take over again once we decide to leave. those people are mainly uneducated goat herders who explain there everyday existance by saying it is allahs will. why cant we sell iraqi oil to pay for our help in liberating them? does anybody see anything wrong with that?