by Vera H-C Chan A renewed military campaign overseas and a war film in Oscar contention have brought attention to one of the military's toughest tasks: defending against the low-tech makeshift bomb, AKA the IED . Laymen audiences learned from " The Hurt Locker ," set in 2004, how IEDs had been the weapon of choice in Iraq. Six years later, IEDs are responsible for two-thirds of coalition deaths in that country, and more than 70 percent in Afghanistan.