Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote: “By 2004, IED attacks [in Iraq] had risen to nearly one hundred per week, becoming the most deadly weapon our troops faced. …[Central Command chief] General [John] Abizaid urged that we mount a Manhattan Project-style effort to find a solution to IEDs, and in June 2004 we created the Joint IED Defeat Task Force with a budget of $1.3 billion and a mandate to find ways to counter the threat.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 648