Trying to outsmart the IEDs BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — By the late summer of 2002, as the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington approached, an American victory in Afghanistan appeared all but assured. A pro-Western government had convened in Kabul. Reconstruction teams fanned out through the provinces. U.S. and coalition troops hunted Taliban and al-Qaida remnants in the mountains along the Pakistani border. | 