By Sgt. David Turner
Multi-National Division - Center
BAGHDAD – Terrorists who use improvised explosive devices as their weapon of choice now have a new foe in Iraq. The members of Multi-National Division – Center's IED defeat cell call them "CSI Baghdad."
As IEDs continue to inflict casualties on coalition and Iraqi security forces, as well as civilians, Soldiers in MND-C employ many new methods of combating the threat. High-tech solutions such as up-armored humvees, the newer mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles and an array of electronic warfare systems protect Soldiers on the roads. Better intelligence on bomb makers and the networks that place IEDs have led to the capture of hundreds of suspects and weapons caches.
A relatively new approach, however, uses an idea familiar to anyone who has ever watched TV crime dramas. Using detective work and advanced crime-scene forensics, law enforcement professionals working with MND-C are using science and the law to put terrorists behind bars.
At the combined explosives exploitation cell on Camp Victory, Joe McMurray, biometrics lab director, oversees the busiest lab of its kind anywhere, which processes more than 30,000 pieces of evidence a month to trace the origins of IEDs to their makers. Using various techniques, the lab works 24 hours a day, examining every component of the devices from post-blast fragments and triggering mechanisms down to the individual components.
The team at the CEXC (pronounced "sexy") has submitted 81 evidence packages, testified in 19 cases in the central criminal court of Iraq and succeeded in getting 17 convictions for bomb-makers since the start of their operations here in 2004. Seven of those convicted criminals are now on Iraq's death row. And the pace is only increasing; over the past three months, said McMurray, requests for evidence packets have tripled.
Gary Edgington, from Woodland Hills, Calif., a retired special agent with the California Department of Justice who now works as a law enforcement adviser for MND-C, said the reason for the new emphasis on forensics isn't just because it works so well.
"It's occurring out of necessity, because of the change in our mandate to operate in country, as well as the shifting focus on using the Iraqi legal system," said Edgington.
"We have to work within the framework of the existing Iraqi legal system, which means we now have to focus on collecting evidence and building prosecutable – key word prosecutable – cases that can be successfully pursued in [the central criminal court of Iraq]. That requires witness statements, photography, diagrams, evidence. All of those elements are crucial to successful prosecutions," he said.
Edgington was quick to point out the difference between detective work and intelligence gathering. While increasingly good human intelligence has been a factor in recent security gains, Edgington said in the future that may not be good enough.
"Intelligence-driven raids and operations were very successful, which is why things are much calmer now than they used to be. It's a success story, no question about it, but the rules of the game are changing, so now we have to adapt to those rules," he said.
"A criminal case requires facts, it requires evidence. Intelligence-driven operations do not necessarily require facts, because the threshold for intelligence is much lower than proving something in a criminal court."
Edgington said the changing emphasis from military operations to law enforcement amounts to a paradigm shift for Soldiers. Not only can the remnants of exploded IEDs be used to capture and convict their makers; even spent shell casings from a small-arms fire incident can be exploited for evidence.
"In the new Iraq, that's a crime scene – that's a shooting scene, just like back home," said Edgington. For that reason, he said, Soldiers need to be trained in how to properly collect evidence and preserve a crime scene.
Collecting and processing evidence, however, is only part of the game. Unlike the crime labs on TV, where a single fingerprint fed into a computer instantly yields a full profile on a suspect, MND-C employs specialists who turn raw data into actionable intelligence to arrest and detain bomb makers.
Mike Murphy, a biometrics case manager for CEXC, said the biometric evidence they collect in the lab are checked against a database for matches. Soldiers use devices known as Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment to collect biometric data including iris scans, fingerprints and photographs from thousands of people to verify their identities.
Murphy helps connect evidence collected in Iraq with intelligence analysts to put together a picture of a bomb-making cell. They piece together biometric evidence with photographs and other intelligence products, giving units on the ground the information they need to target specific criminals. Biometrics can even give clues as to who built the device versus who placed it.
"We have everyone from the guy who's putting it together to the guy who's emplacing it to financiers. We get data from everything – ledgers, documents; you have everyone from the hard-core insurgent who has been in the game for a while to a corrupt cop to a 14-year-old kid," he said.
Nicole Miami, a biometrics watch list manager working for MND-C, said a single cache of explosives can yield huge amounts of information on IED makers. In November 2007, she said, a cache of more than 400 partially-built explosively formed penetrators was turned over to CEXC.
"They developed every single piece of evidence and they found hundreds of data points on all the individuals who helped build, move, transport, shape and mold these devices," Miami said.
"MND-C units have actually detained nine individuals where they didn't have any knowledge that these guys were building bombs – nobody did – their names didn't appear in any types of reports, nobody was really focusing on them," she said. "Biometrics is really paying off."
Iraqi police have used biometric evidence in criminal courts for decades, but as convictions for IED makers have increased, the central criminal court of Iraq is taking a harder look at prosecuting cases based on forensic evidence, said Miami.
"Now, we're actually getting convictions and long-term imprisonment. It's working – the process is slow because it's new; new technology, new things. But now that they actually know what the process is, how it works, they understand," she said.
Murphy said the success rate of getting convictions is not only due to the increasing acceptance of scientific evidence by Iraqi courts, but because of the high standards of the professionals who present the evidence they collect.
"When they put together a product, they are putting it together to a standard, and they provide verification forms and affidavits, so they are willing to testify to this information. They are putting their name and reputation on the line," he said.