Insurgents Using U.S. Techniques

FORT MONMOUTH, N.J. -- In 1965, the U.S. Army published a detailed manual on how to build and hide booby traps, complete with detailed diagrams illustrating various means of wiring detonators to explosives, and advising on the best locations for concealing the deadly bombs along roadways and elsewhere.

Two decades later, the Iraqi military issued its troops an Arabic version of the same manual, copying not only the wording but also many of the drawings. Dated March 1987 and stamped "confidential," the manual includes a message from Saddam Hussein, then Iraq's supreme ruler, underscoring the importance of perpetual learning.

The existence of the Iraqi copy highlights the degree to which U.S. military techniques and technology found their way into Hussein's military even as relations between the Iraqi leader and Washington eventually deteriorated into all-out war. With members of Hussein's former military and security groups now powering much of the insurgency in Iraq, U.S. forces find themselves confronting an enemy trained, at least in part, in U.S. military methods.

Concern that Iraqi rebels may be drawing on U.S. bombmaking tactics prompted investigators last year to "pull off the shelves" for review all the manuals that the Iraqis may have had access to, according to a colonel in Washington familiar with the effort.