Prometheus 6

Researchers placed each bee in a tiny harness, exposed the insects to various explosive scents for six seconds, and then provided a sugar water reward. This Pavlovian conditioning soon caused a bee to extend its proboscis -- tongue -- in anticipation of sugar whenever it detected a whiff of TNT or C-4 plastic explosive. A small television camera placed in a box where the bees were harnessed would allow a soldier watching a monitor to see whether the "proboscis extension reflex" signaled the presence of explosives. In 2004, bees had stuck out their tongues at 50 pounds of TNT in a simulated IED, according to Robert Wingo, a Los Alamos chemist.

Votel's reaction upon learning of the project was typical: "What?" The practical applications in combat seemed limited. "How do we operationalize this?" he asked. "How does, say, 1st Platoon manage their bees?" Among other problems, harnessed bees tended to be short-lived. After an analysis concluded that the honeybee's "explosive-detection capabilities have significant reliability issues," as a Defense Department official put it earlier this year, the Pentagon withdrew its support.

'You can't armor your way out of this problem'
By Rick Atkinson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 2, 2007; A01

BAGHDAD -- On Aug. 3, 2005, the deadliest roadside bomb ever encountered by U.S. troops in Iraq detonated beneath a 26-ton armored personnel carrier, killing 14 Marines and revealing yet another American vulnerability in the struggle against improvised explosive devices.

"Huge fire and dust rose from the place of the explosion," an Iraqi witness reported from the blast site in Haditha, in Anbar province. In Baghdad and in Washington, the bleak recognition that a new species of bomb -- the underbelly, or "deep buried," IED -- could demolish any combat vehicle in the U.S. arsenal "was a light-bulb moment for sure," as a Pentagon analyst later put it.

Of the 81,000 IED attacks in Iraq over the past 4 1/2 years, few proved more devastating to morale than that "huge fire" in Haditha. At a time when coalition casualties per IED steadily declined, even as the number of bombs steadily increased, the abrupt obliteration of an entire squad -- made up mostly of reservists from Ohio -- revealed that the billions of dollars being spent on heavier armor and other "defeat the device" initiatives had clear limits.

Haditha provided a light-bulb moment for insurgents as well. During the next year, underbelly attacks just in the Marine sector of western Iraq would increase from a few each month to an average of four per day. By early summer of this year, the underbelly IED -- considered a specialty of Sunni bombers -- was killing more American troops in Iraq than all other variants of roadside bombs combined.

A bomb with 100 pounds of explosives detonating beneath an armored vehicle was equivalent to a direct hit from a six-gun artillery battery, but with an accuracy no gunner could hope to achieve. A single 155mm artillery round, which by itself can destroy a tank, typically contained 18 pounds of explosives. "That's just a damned difficult thing to defeat," said Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the current chief of staff for the Multinational Corps in Baghdad.