LAT
WASHINGTON — During his speech about Iraq on Monday, President Bush criticized a newspaper article that he said revealed sensitive information about the Pentagon's effort to combat improvised explosive devices, the makeshift roadside bombs responsible for thousands of injuries and deaths. White House officials later said that Bush was referring to a Feb. 12 report in the Los Angeles Times.
"Within five days of the publication, using details from that article, the enemy had posted instructions for defeating this new technology on the Internet," Bush said. "We cannot let the enemy know how we're working to defeat them."
The Times article was about an internal Pentagon debate over a device called the Joint IED Neutralizer, or JIN. The article said that even though the device had passed a battery of military utility tests, and a prototype had destroyed about 90% of the improvised explosives laid in its path during testing, the neutralizer units had still not been sent to combat units in Iraq.
The delay had angered some in the military, who noted that it had been 10 months since then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz recommended investing $30 million in research and immediately sending the neutralizer prototypes to Iraq for testing.
The article did not provide specific information about the technology, and The Times deliberately withheld some details about the neutralizers from its report....The Times spoke to several Defense Department officials before the article appeared. None expressed concern that publication could endanger U.S. troops....(Before) The Times published its article, the technology was featured in several news reports....Before Bush mentioned the report Monday, no U.S. officials had contacted The Times to raise those concerns....
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