Survey exposes flaw in domestic improvised explosive device reporting system.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security News

* A survey of bomb squads in the United States found that only a small percentage of improvised explosive device incidents are reported to a national database, said a federal official tasked with preventing terrorist bombings.

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"You have IED incidents occurring all across the United States daily that never get put into a database, never get brought forward and are only seen in the news," said Edwin Bundy, program manager of the improvised device defeat subgroup of the technical support working group at the combating terrorism technical support office.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is tasked with keeping track of all IED-related incidents in its Bomb Arson Tracking System database.

The problem is that there is no law requiring that bomb disposal units file reports, Bundy said at the GovSec conference in Washington, D.C.

Suspecting that there was serious underreporting, TSWG conducted a survey of all 468 public safety bomb squads in the United States in 2011. The report found that the units were called into action some 32,000 times in 2010. Meanwhile, the ATF database showed about 3,400 incidents.

An incident was defined in this survey as anytime a bomb squad was dispatched, including hoaxes, suspicious packages that turn out to be harmless, or real explosive devices. Each case requires that a unit use its resources to respond, Bundy said.

Only 27 percent of bomb squads were reporting to the database, and of those, only 50 percent were reporting 100 percent of the incidents, he said.

The survey also found that some bomb disposal units were only reporting what they considered "serious incidents." The problem is that a "serious incident" is not defined, Bundy said.

The bomb squads "don't understand that here in D.C., things are driven by statistics. If you're not keeping accurate records, you're not getting all the resources that you need," Bundy said.

On Feb. 26, the 20th anniversary of the first World Trade Center bombing in New York City, President Obama released the countering improvised explosive devices presidential directive that, among other items, called for cooperation and information sharing about IEDs among federal, international and private sector partners.

It also directed agencies to identify IED networks; bomber tactics, techniques and procedures; and to enhance the reporting on and dissemination of criminal intelligence, incident information and suspicious activity involving explosives.

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