IEDs Seen As Rising Threat in The U.S.

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Washington Post

The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI agree that the homemade explosive devices that have wreaked havoc in Iraq pose a rising threat to the United States. But lawmakers and first responders say the Bush administration has been slow to devise a strategy for countering the weapons and has not provided adequate money and training for a concerted national effort.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who told the Senate last month that such bombs are terrorists' "weapon of choice," said yesterday at a local meeting on the threat that President Bush will soon issue a blueprint for countering the threat of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. His own department said in a draft report on IEDs earlier this year that national efforts "lack strategic guidance, are sometimes insufficiently coordinated . . . and lack essential resources."

Among the shortcomings identified in the report: Explosives-sniffing dogs are trained differently by various federal agencies, making collaboration between squads "difficult if not impossible." Federal agencies maintain separate databases on bomb incidents. Separately, bomb squad commanders have complained of inadequate training for responding to truck bombs.

Local officials say preparedness efforts around the country remain a patchwork quilt. For instance, the Los Angeles Police Department's bomb squad, which responds to about 1,000 calls a year, has 28 full-time explosives technicians and is about to move into a new, $8 million downtown headquarters. The squad has an explosives library, a research facility for testing, and access to an explosives range for training.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/19/AR2007101902703.html?hpid=topnews

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2008 coming. Terror, terror, terror.

[LakeSamish706]

1. Yep, and no doubt Blackwater will be the ones that are delivering them.... n/t

[phaseolus]

2. A smart Democratic campaign...

...only needs to point out how the Republicans have proven how horrible they've been at combating threats.

Anyway, apart from the random McVeigh now and then, IEDs are NOT going to be a problem in America. You pretty much need a perfect storm of anarchy, incipient civil war, and a huge unguarded military ammo dump to create an IED problem.

[DavidMS]

9. I though it took much less than that...

Just a bunch of crazy conservatives who don't like how the election went when President %president% sweeps the election in a landslide.

Just think of the 90s "Minutemen" but with a greater willingness to die and some 30-50 pounds less overweight.

%president% = any Dem to take the office in Feb 09.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Chertoff is making a grab for power.

He wants to be the next J. Edgar Hoover, lasting through multiple administrations, a law unto himself.

[PSPS]

4. GOP to nation: "Vote for us or we'll kill you." (Same message as the last 4 elections.)

Is this what they'll do to declare an "emergency" and make bush the official (instead of merely de-facto) dictator instead of having an election?

[pattmarty]

5. Oh gee, and look where they were "invented" and perfected at.

[MidwestTransplant]

6. If terrorists come to Iraq and deploy IEDs there are no real countermeasures. We will know where

they honed their techniques though. IMO that will be one of the longest term impacts of the war in Iraq....the motivation and training of thousands of battle hardened Jihadists who hate the US more and more each day.

[FREEWILL56]

7. It seems to me that homeland security was supposed to tie all

agencies together to coordinate efforts in our varied law enforcement departments. They failed at every job level they were charged in fulfilling.
As to protecting us from anything is a very difficult task that we may not always be so lucky in discovering plots. Sooner or later they will miss something and the results will of course be bad. What this administration is banking on is that it doesn't happen until a newly elected democratic president is allowed to take office. I do mean allowed to take office as it is benefitial to the repukes if the bad things happen under our watch and not theirs. I say look again as it is too late for them to not say that we were safe under their watch, but what happens after 9-11 does have some impact as they then make it seem that they learned their lessons. This leads us to open the whole can of worms, but in setting that asside and focussing on our safety concerns, just what is to stop anybody from doing anything? The only real heightened security is at airports and of course at government levels so there's nothing to stop an improvised devise from doing dirty deeds nearly anywhere and this doesn't just get limited to explosive devices either. The bottomline is that homeland security is an expensive overblown joke that have proven themselves to be so with an inability to even help much during a hurricane.
The real purpose is the fear card while giving most a false sense of security. Most of that fear is aimed at congress along with an ace up their sleeve of biological weapons such as anthrax for those that don't fear them and go too far. It is how to take over a government in steps don't you know?

[KeepItReal]

8. Oh they must mean the anti-abortion/anti-gay IED makers like Eric Rudoph?

"Eric Robert Rudolph (born September 19, 1966), also known as the Olympic Park Bomber, is an American domestic terrorist,<2><3> who committed a series of bombings across the southern United States, which killed three people and injured at least 150 others. He declared that his bombings were part of a guerrilla campaign against abortion and what he describes as "the homosexual agenda." "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Robert_Rudolph