Letter to General Meigs (ret.), Joint IED Defeat Organization

June 21, 2006

General(R) Montgomery Meigs
Director, Joint IED Defeat Organization
5000 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310

Dear General Meigs: 

As chairmen of the Congressional Electronic Warfare Working Group (EWWG) and with a deep interest in the electronic warfare (EW) readiness of our military, it has recently come to our attention that U.S. armed forces face a serious shortfall in trained EW officers.  This situation evolved during the last 10 years with the demise of the U.S. Air Force’s EW community after the retirement of the EF-111 and the F-4G aircraft and the paucity of tactical EW capability within the U.S. Army.  Only the Navy and Marine Corps have a cadre of EW officers, but their numbers are inadequate and they are stretched too thin to effectively support the entire Armed Forces.  The Army, in particular, is especially in need of trained EW officers to properly train and use existing tactics, techniques, and procedures to defeat the IED threat to soldiers.  This threat has a powerful EW component because of the methods used by our enemies to control and detonate these devices.

The Army intends to establish schools to train EW officers to fully man all positions from battalion and above.  While that effort gets underway, the Navy volunteered naval personnel to work within Army units deployed overseas.  Additionally, your organization, in conjunction with the U.S. Navy’s Electronic Attack Weapons School (EAWS) at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington, has launched an initiative to train Army and other Service officers to properly fulfill the EW billets on Army and Joint staffs. 

Because this emerging need to train EW officers was not included in the Department of Defense FY2007 budget submission, the Navy is contributing to our joint training and manning of billets requiring EW expertise overseas, which is commendable.  However, its efforts are short-term fixes only, and the Navy EW schoolhouse currently is not staffed to handle this new joint training mission with the active duty personnel currently assigned.  We are aware of an initiative by private industry to augment the staff of the EAWS.  Due to the immediate war fighting need for counter-IED capabilities, we would like to request that you provide funding to the Navy to support this effort.  We would appreciate the opportunity to provide you additional information about this initiative and request you consider it for funding immediately.  Please contact Amy Jones of Rep. Joe Pitts’ staff so that she can coordinate the exchange of information accordingly.

We are convinced that timely and comprehensive EW training for war fighting staffs overseas will translate into U.S. and friendly lives saved.  We would greatly appreciate your support of this very important training initiative.

As Members of the EWWG, we are highly interested in your efforts to defeat IEDs, and we commend you on your work.  We would like the opportunity to meet with you in the future to discuss the important mission of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization and to solicit ways in which we can help you in your mission.

Sincerely,

Joseph R. Pitts
Rick Larsen
Norman D. Dicks
 

Electronic Warfare Working Group

Congressman Joe Pitts, Founder and Chairman

420 Cannon House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

202 225-2411 phone    202 225-2013 fax