Amen...
Posted on 07/30/2012 4:08:57 PM PDT by AuntB
WASHINGTON — Improvised explosive devices, like those that have killed and maimed thousands of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, pose a growing threat across Texas and the United States, leading to calls for urgent cooperation between U.S. military experts and civilian law enforcement officers.
Army Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, director of the Pentagon's so-called Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, alerted Congress in classified testimony this month to the mounting IED threat at home.
He also highlighted the challenges his team faces trying to train stateside law enforcement agencies to detect, disarm and defeat the devices.
“The domestic IED threat from both homegrown terrorists and global threat networks is real and presents a significant security challenge for the United States and our international partners,” Barbero warned a subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
Of 880 terrorist attacks in North and South America last year — most in Mexico and Colombia — 109 were carried out by IEDs that killed or wounded 245 people; 18 were carried out by vehicle-born IEDs that killed or wounded 180 people, according to statistics maintained by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In the United States, there were 24 terrorist attacks last year that killed 13 people and wounded 33, according to the report by NATO's Center of Excellence for Defense Against Terrorism.
But legal restrictions on the activities of U.S. armed forces are slowing crucial collaboration, insiders complain.
Federal laws dating to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 limit the use of U.S. armed forces in domestic law enforcement and training, an impediment some members of Congress want to change.
The Pentagon's specialized $1.9 billion-a-year IED organization has “saved many servicemen's lives by teaching lessons learned in blood on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan,” say Republican Congressmen Peter King of New York, Daniel Lungren of California, and Michael McCaul of Texas, leaders of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
“Their hard-won knowledge should now be shared with American lawmen facing these same deadly threats at home.”
“To me it's crazy that the guy who is the expert on IEDs overseas can't coordinate with the Texas Rangers,” adds McCaul. “The military is unable to coordinate with state and local law enforcement, leaving a gaping hole in our security.”
Evidence of the threat has surfaced repeatedly. A car bomb was disarmed in New York City's Times Square and explosives were discovered in ink cartridges aboard two U.S.-bound commercial cargo planes in 2010. Improvised explosives in an airline passenger's underwear nearly brought down a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009.
The suspect in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre, James Holmes, deployed IEDs in his apartment, authorities said.
With Mexican drug cartels using car bombs in cities bordering Texas, officials along the southwest border are increasingly concerned about ready-to-go devices being smuggled into the United States.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw, citing the widening threat, has pressured the Pentagon to help train officers to detect IEDs and also is seeking FBI approval for the Texas Rangers to establish a statewide unit to deal with explosives.
But his efforts have run into bureaucratic resistance, according to knowledgeable officials.
“It is essential that all state troopers be skilled in the detection and interdiction of (devices), precursor chemicals and component parts,” McCraw said. Texas Rangers and DPS criminal investigation agents have training “to detect IEDs and their components in the course of their investigations, whether the targets are Mexican cartels or serial murderers,” he added.
“Deeper cooperation is absolutely essential,” insists McCaul, a former deputy state attorney general. “I think military and government lawyers are being too cautious. We want to fix that.”
stewart.powell@chron.com
I pray that it never comes... the muslim prays that it does.
LLS
I heard soon to be Senator Cruz speak today and he told of how his father... at he age of 18... having been jailed in Cuba, beaten and having his teeth kicked out... sewn a $100.00 bill into his underwear and floated to the USA. He said that his father told him, “You must protect America. When I was in Cuba and fighting for freedom, no matter how bad things were... I always knew that I could be free in America. If we lose America, there is no other place to go”.
I for one am willing to die for this republic... I do not want to... even Washington hated War... but I will answer the call if Lady Liberty asks.
LLS
Amen...
Open borders, amnesty and all the government freebies a terrorist could want. Welcome to AmeriKa.
There was a big order for bullet proof checkpoint booths a few months ago.
After 9/11 how many attacks did we have when an R was President?
Surely we would have heard it day in and day out
The story is full of stupidity.
All the cops have to do is hire the veterans who worked with IED’s while in service.
Result:
Expertise in the law enforcement, jobs for veterans who otherwise would be searching for a decent job other than greeters at WalMart.
The story is full of stupidity.
All the cops have to do is hire the veterans who worked with IED’s while in service.
Result:
Expertise in the law enforcement, jobs for veterans who otherwise would be searching for a decent job other than greeters at WalMart.
damn right...
Real IEDs are not a threat, so they are not the point of the exercise. The point is more police and intelligence community powers, less Civil Rights, bigger budgets. They are arguing like public service unions.
“We never have everything we want. We want more! Too much is not enough!”
“Why do you think that fdr interned the Japanese citizens living in America during WWII? Because they would not have been safe in any other place in America.”
Actually it was only done to the Japanese living in the Pacific coast states, excluding the territory of Hawaii.
And there is some evidence that the internment was done in order to capture several hundred spies without tipping our hand that we had identified them; their identities had been learned because we had broken the Japanese naval and diplomatic codes. If only the spies had been rounded up Japan could have figured out how we did it, and changed their codes.
Thank you Aunt B for the ping.
Hmmm interesting. I had read that before but thought it rumor. Could be what happened.
LLS
Go back to sleep. There are plenty others here snoozing away.
Remember the thread several years ago about terrorists crossing the border??
Aye, Be Ever Vigilant!!
Aye, Be Ever Vigilant!!
Sadly, America has sold her national sovereignty for a nice landscape job.
“I for one am willing to die for this republic... I do not want to... even Washington hated War... but I will answer the call if Lady Liberty asks.”
Ditto. There are many, many of us who’ll have your back.
They bought a huge ranch in Tampaulitas right there on the East coast. I remember that thread and can find it eventually if anybody needs it.
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