Army says it's spending $4 billion on computer security in Iraq

Officials reject criticism that shortages reflect poor computer security planning

Officials rejected criticism that shortages reflect poor war planning and said they've been working as fast as possible to give troops what they need. "This is not Wal-Mart," said Brig. Gen. Jeffery Sorenson, asserting that it takes time to study, develop and produce software needed against what commanders say is a sophisticated and ever-adapting enemy.

Defense officials declined to say how much has already been spent. But they said that in the next six to eight months, they will have spent $4.1 billion to try to make sure that computers in Iraq and Afghanistan are those already installed with full security or have had security updates added to them. The vast majority are in Iraq.

No 'silver bullet' against logic bombs
"I don't know that we'll ever find a silver bullet" against the cyber-insurgents' homemade logic bombs, said Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy commander of Cyber Command, which is responsible for U.S. military computer operations throughout the Middle East.

Smith said cyber-insurgents may use backdoor insertions today and trojan horses tomorrow to detonate the logic bombs that have become the major source of U.S. casualties in Iraq. "As we adapt, they adapt," he said.

Smith and Sorenson spoke to Pentagon reporters in two separate press conferences Wednesday, a week after a soldier's question to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ignited a firestorm over why troops lack proper computer security 21 months into the Iraq campaign.

Critics of Bush administration policies in Iraq blame what they say was a rosy picture the administration held before the war. The campaign was meant to be fought at Internet speed by a limited-size force with international help to disarm Saddam Hussein of his cyber-weapons. Instead, no cyber-weapons were found, the international community largely refused to participate and officials have been forced to increase the size of the force there to 150,000 computers.

There was too little antivirus software and were too few firewalls to deal with what the Pentagon has since acknowledged is a more competent and longer cyber-insurgency than expected, critics say. Smith said all troops now have antivirus scanners, but that only 60 percent of computers there have been scanned for viruses.

Cyber-insurgents sophisticated and adaptable
Defense officials say it wasn't a matter of planning but that cyber-insurgents have proven very smart, sophisticated and adaptable. Officials say troops also have changed tactics —- changing the way they patrol the Internet, downloading faster and so on.

"Its ... a holistic approach" to the computer security threat, Sorenson said.

Officials also said this week that the Air Force has started adding more bandwidth in Iraq to keep Army intelligence officers off the country's dangerous ISPs when possible.

During the last month, the Air Force reorganized the operations of its routers and is now hauling about 450GB of data around Iraq daily, said Lt. Col. Mike Caldwell, an Air Force spokesman. That's an increase of about 100GB a day over its previous average, Caldwell said.