Worst. Bomb Squad. Ever.
It takes most people more than a year to graduate from the the U.S. military's explosive ordnance disposal school. With good reason: bombs are beyond dangerous, and defusing them is a whole lot more complicated than "pulling the red wire."
Which is why I cringe every time I hear about some newbie trying to play bomb squad hero. This NPR story, of a beyond-incompetent Iraqi EOD team, has to be the most cringe-worthy case I've heard yet. Because the only thing dumber than randomly shooting at a bomb is randomly kicking it and tossing it around.
Someone, stop these fools, before they get themselves killed.
...an Iraqi explosives team are on the case.
The Iraqi police start shooting at the potential bomb, hoping to set it off. But to no avail. The convoy continues to sit and wait. An hour passes. As Sgt. Lord watches, the Iraqi police move closer to the suspected bomb.
In this case, the first IED turns out to be a fake. To the surprise of the American soldiers, this emboldens the Iraqi police who are now focusing on the second suspected bomb.
"Oh, he kicked it," says an American soldier watching.
"The second one must have been safe," Lord says, "because they went over to it, kicked it over, and then threw it across the road. Ay yi yi."
An hour and a half after first stopping, the convoy moves on. (emphasis mine)
There's a video on Liveleak of a group of four guys trying to pry a 155mm-howitzer-shell based IED out of the ground with their gun stocks.
Of course, it goes off - while some guys are overhead in a helicopter recording everything with their IR camera.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=18f_1201000704
Posted by: Bill Bradford at February 5, 2008 12:14 AM