The company said in a statement earlier this month that it had started a new Web site to recruit experts from American industry and universities to come up with new ways of neutralizing improvised explosive devices – IEDs – which remain the cause of death for U.S. troops operating in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Raytheon said companies and academics with suggestions for the program should send them to the Raytheon web site at http://www.raytheon.com/missions/rtn07_ied.

The company said it was inviting companies in American industry and academia to suggest link-ups and new cooperative initiatives to seek ideas in developing systems to combat IEDs. The new web site is equipped with protective measures to keep any data sent to it confidential.

"As an industry leader in Mission Systems Integration, Raytheon is committed to ending the threat of IEDs to service members," said Jack Costello, vice president of Business Development and Strategic Planning for Raytheon Network Centric Systems. "Coalition forces are still being affected on the battlefield, so we decided to exhaust every opportunity to find the best solutions. I hope industry accepts our challenge in this important endeavor."

Raytheon said its IED-Defeat Task Force provides capabilities to meet what it called "urgent operational needs" in programs that have been ordered and financed the

Defense Department's Joint IED Defeat Office, the Department of Homeland

Security, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy.