The Pentagon's troubled anti-homemade bomb task force is about to get a new leader. Army Lieutenant General Michael Barbero is coming in, and Army Lieutenant General Michael Oates is heading out, the Pentagon announced Wednesday evening. In an email to his team, Oates says he's stepping down so someone with "more current combat credibility" -- that is, experience out in the war zones -- can take over.
Oates took over the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, known as JIEDDO, last December. Since then, he's tried to reorient the organization to combating the homemade bomb scourge in Afghanistan, where bombs rely on fertilizers rather than metals, making them harder to detect. But in just the first eight months of 2010, there were 1,063 successful bomb attacks on U.S. and allied troops, up from 820 during the first eight months of 2009.
In the comment thread of a recent Danger Room post, Oates -- a social-media enthusiast -- attributed that spike to more aggressive NATO fighting. "The resulting downturn in IED incidents I believe is a trend we will now sustain," he predicted last month. Adds Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, "He has done very well at JIEDDO and should be recognized accordingly." Oates will retire from the Army after 31 years. ("By no means was he canned," Morrell says.)
Still, Congress hasn't been so pleased. A Senate panel cut $442 million out of JIEDDO's budget in September and questioned how wisely the organization spends its cash. That was the latest move in a years-long trend of legislators' impatience with stopping deadly homemade bombs. That same month, the* Washington Times* reported that the Pentagon thought the "unwieldy" organization needed restructuring.
Oates' farewell email to his staff subtly places his departure in the context of the grumblings about JIEDDO's effectiveness in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and on the Hill."Effective advocacy requires combat credibility with the myriad of stakeholders that influence and impact JIEDDO," he writes. Oates been JIEDDO director for just under a year, while his predecessor, Army Lieutenant General Thomas Metz had the job fortwice as long.
"I believe combat credibility becomes fairly latent at about 2 years and directly impacts the effectiveness of the Director," Oates continued. "In May 2011 I will have been out of the combat zone for 2 years and it is essential that we have a new Director with more current combat credibility to effectively advocate for our combat commanders with OSD, Congress, and the Families of our troops in harm's way."
It appears Gates heard Oates' message. Barbero is coming off a year-long stint as the number-two officer in charge of training and equipping Iraqi troops. We'll see how well his experience in a country that became the crucible of the modern improvised explosive device serves him at the big bomb squad. In his email, Oates expresses confidence that Barbero will reinvigorate JIEDDO: "The new Director, fresh from the combat zone will bring the essential credibility and advocacy required to focus our efforts over the following years."
*Update, 7:37 a.m., November 11: *Updated to include Morrell's explanation of Oates' departure. Still waiting on JIEDDO representatives to talk about the switchover.
Another Update, 8:45 a.m.: Rewrote to include the email from Oates, which goes a long way toward explaining the shift.
Photo: U.S. Army
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