Army says, "not yet," USMC says, "hurry up," to Joint IED Neutralizer

According to this story in the LA Times (registration may be required -- I am not sure), the USMC is hurrying to put JINs, Joint IED Neutralizers, into service in Iraq, while the Army is dragging its heels and saying the remote-controlled armor-plated golfcarts with a high-energy sweeper beam that's supposed to cause IEDs to blow up out of range of personel aren't read for prime time.

Last April, Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of a Pentagon task force in charge of finding ways to combat the makeshift bombs known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, endorsed development of the vehicle, called the Joint IED Neutralizer. The remote-controlled device blows up roadside bombs with a directed electrical charge, and based on Votel's assessment, then-deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz recommended investing $30 million in research and sending prototypes to Iraq for testing.
But 10 months later — and after a prototype destroyed about 90% of the IEDs laid in its path during a battery of tests — not a single JIN has been shipped to Iraq.

To many in the military, the delay in deploying the vehicles, which resemble souped-up, armor-plated golf carts, is a case study in the Pentagon's inability to bypass cumbersome peacetime procedures to meet the urgent demands of troops in the field. More than half of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq have been caused by roadside bombs, and the number of such attacks nearly doubled last year compared with 2004.

[...]

"The decision has been made that it's not yet mature enough," said Army Brig. Gen. Dan Allyn, deputy director of the task force, which was recently renamed the Joint IED Defeat Organization. Iraq is "not the place to be testing unproven technology."

But the Marine Corps believes otherwise and recently decided to circumvent the testing schedule and send JIN units to Al Anbar province in western Iraq. Marines have been deployed in the restive area, home to the cities of Fallouja and Ramadi, since February 2004.

The Marines are now making final preparations to deploy a number of JIN prototypes to Al Anbar. Based on their performance, Marine commanders said, they hope the device can eventually be used throughout Iraq.

Tuscon-based Ionatron builds the vehicles (and apparently either it or the USMC has good PR connections with the LA Times!).

Update: Defense Tech (who else) has a post up about this.

Semi-Regular Defense Tech Roundup

Stuff of interest via Defense Tech this past week.

• UAVs for the police: Link.
• Foam UAVs: Link.
• Three-foot diameter flying-saucer UAV: Link.
  

Seahorse

Defense Tech is reporting on the Navy's testing of its new underwater UAV, the Seahorse. Details at the link, as well as a collection of links to other Navy UAV goings on.