'L.A. Times' Responds to Bush Attack On Its IED Report

By: E&P Staff During a speech about Iraq on Monday, President Bush criticized a recent Los Angeles Times story that he said revealed sensitive information about the Pentagon's effort to combat improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The president did not mention the newspaper by name but White House officials later said he was referring to a Feb. 12 story in the Los Angeles Times.

"Within five days of the publication, using details from that article, the enemy had posted instructions for defeating this new technology on the Internet," Bush said. "We cannot let the enemy know how we're working to defeat them."

In a news article today, the Times reviewed the episode, asserting that it did not provide specifics about the technology, withheld some details, and had talked to Pentagon officials before publication and none raised any concerns about it. Much of the article follows.

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The Times article was about an internal Pentagon debate over a device called the Joint IED Neutralizer, or JIN. The article said that even though the device had passed a battery of military utility tests, and a prototype had destroyed about 90% of the improvised explosives laid in its path during testing, the neutralizer units had still not been sent to combat units in Iraq.

The delay had angered some in the military, who noted that it had been 10 months since then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz recommended investing $30 million in research and immediately sending the neutralizer prototypes to Iraq for testing.

The article did not provide specific information about the technology, and The Times deliberately withheld some details about the neutralizers from its report.

"We knew about some of the technical details of the program, but voluntarily omitted them because they were not germane to the story," Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus said.

The Times spoke to several Defense Department officials before the article appeared. None expressed concern that publication could endanger U.S. troops.

Even before The Times published its article, the technology was featured in several news reports. Last year, NBC News broadcast a segment about the neutralizers, showing video footage of the device detonating improvised explosives in its path.

"We do not knowingly publish information that puts troops in danger," McManus said. "The government often asks us not to publish sensitive facts. They made no such request in this case."

Before Bush mentioned the report Monday, no U.S. officials had contacted The Times to raise those concerns.

"No one in the U.S. government came to us after the story was published to complain about it," McManus said. "Even now, no official complaint has been made directly to us."