Yikes

We who are about to splode salute you.

I've been getting interested in anti-IED tech. It's an important problem: how do you detect, disable, detonate, or render harmless a sometimes low-tech roadside bomb? There have been many approaches, some more effective than others but all of them interesting.

So what do you make of electronic divining rods?:

The U.S. military has invested heavily in teaching Iraqis to fight roadside bombs, training ordnance disposal teams and passing on post-blast analysis techniques. But Iraqi security forces also swear by a device that the U.S. military refuses to touch: the ADE651.

According to U.S. experts, the ADE651-style detector — which is supposed to sniff out explosive traces at long distance — is little more than a fancy divining rod. (Click here to see a training video.) But as Rod Nordland of the New York Times reports from Baghdad, the Iraqis “believe passionately in them.” Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s bomb-fighting directorate, tells Nordland: “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs.”

All you can do is wish them luck.