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Depends on how complex the IED is. If it is using a cellular telephone or a portion of a garage door opener, you probably could burn them out using some sort of focused high energy RF signal IF the electrical components were exposed enough to be attacked. I understand some units are presently using frequency jammers set on cell phone and garage door opener frequencies as a countermeasure.

However, if the IED is command detonated using an electric blasting cap, field wire and a battery, that's a pretty simple circuit. It has no ICs or other complex components to fry (or jam). Hitting it with the theoretical focused beam may or may not affect it, since the blasting cap will be inside the explosive device (assuming an artillery shell here) and surrounded by metal that will absorb and shunt the projected energy away from the blasting cap. What criteria would you use to decide how long to keep the beam focused on a suspected item to see if it would go off? Going to fry a lot of garbage along the way.

From what I have read, the problem with IEDs is that Iraqi roads are pretty trashy. The task is to figure out what is just routine trash and what is a camouflaged IED waiting to be set off when the MNF comes by. Since there are always people around (mostly innocent, some not), you can't just indiscriminently fire up everything that looks suspicious as a policy (although I suspect more than a few soldiers and Marines would like to do just that). Instead, they either drive fast, jam the frequencies and pray they are lucky or they deliberately search for the devices using combined forces foot patrols. Dangerous business either way.

However, if the IED is command detonated using an electric blasting cap, field wire and a battery, that's a pretty simple circuit.

True, but you should be able to generate an EMP that will put enough voltage on the field wire to set off the cap. This millimeter wave device won't do it, but there are pulse generators that might be able to do it.