Counter-IED office stresses the need for inter-agency cooperation

While federal agencies theoretically should already be working together, it becomes particularly important in the ongoing dual conflicts in the Middle East. Troops are spread thin, funding is drying up and, in the wake of the Great Recession, the U.S. government has taken on unprecedented responsibilities for the clean-up.

So when a top official from the Joint Improvised Explosives Defeat Organization says it’s time to work together, perhaps Capitol Hill should listen up.

“How do we get all of these agencies playing in the same sandbox to attack this problem?” Frank Larkin, JIEDDO deputy director of operations integration, asked an audience at the AFCEA Warfighter Support Agency IT Day outside Washington, D.C., on July 15. Then, bringing a full arsenal of cliches to bear, he answered himself: “There is no silver bullet, but there is a secret sauce and the ingredients are all the different agencies."

And for this recipe, he said, the agencies must improve information-sharing capabilities.

“Information-sharing is king. We need to combine information for focused and fused analysis,” Larkin said. “We want everyone’s data. We’re data hawks.”