NOW HEAR THIS CHECK THE DATE THEY WANT TO PREPARE FOR
September 2011
Pentagon to deploy 20,000 uniformed troops inside US by 2011 to prepare
for "catastrophes"
Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27989275/
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the
United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond
to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according
to Pentagon officials.
The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland
security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after
years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts
said.
There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil
liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new
homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly
undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law
restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.
But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a
heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade,
saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dedicating 20,000 troops
to domestic response -- a nearly sevenfold increase in five years --
"would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable," Paul
McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said in
remarks last month at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies. But the realization that civilian authorities may be
overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted "a fundamental change in military
culture," he said.
The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready
for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit,
built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga.,
was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander
of the U.S. Northern Command.
If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller
National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in
supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to
respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or
high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.
Military preparations for a domestic weapon-of-mass-destruction attack
have been underway since at least 1996, when the Marine Corps activated
a 350-member chemical and biological incident response force and later
based it in Indian Head, Md., a Washington suburb. Such efforts
accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, and at the time Iraq was invaded
in 2003, a Pentagon joint task force drew on 3,000 civil support
personnel across the United States.
In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized "preparing
for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents." National security
threats were not limited to adversaries who seek to grind down U.S.
combat forces abroad, McHale said, but also include those who "want to
inflict such brutality on our society that we give up the fight," such
as by detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city.
In late 2007, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a directive
approving more than $556 million over five years to set up the three
response teams, known as CBRNE Consequence Management Response Forces.
Planners assume an incident could lead to thousands of casualties, more
than 1 million evacuees and contamination of as many as 3,000 square
miles, about the scope of damage Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005.
Last month, McHale said, authorities agreed to begin a $1.8 million
pilot project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through
which civilian authorities in five states could tap military planners to
develop disaster response plans. Hawaii, Massachusetts, South Carolina,
Washington and West Virginia will each focus on a particular threat --
pandemic flu, a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake and catastrophic
chemical release, respectively -- speeding up federal and state
emergency planning begun in 2003.
Last Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered defense officials
to review whether the military, Guard and reserves can respond
adequately to domestic disasters.
Gates gave commanders 25 days to propose changes and cost estimates. He
cited the work of a congressionally chartered commission, which
concluded in January that the Guard and reserve forces are not ready and
that they lack equipment and training.
Bert B. Tussing, director of homeland defense and security issues at the
U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership, said the new
Pentagon approach "breaks the mold" by assigning an active-duty combat
brigade to the Northern Command for the first time. Until now, the
military required the command to rely on troops requested from other
sources.
"This is a genuine recognition that this [job] isn't something that you
want to have a pickup team responsible for," said Tussing, who has
assessed the military's homeland security strategies.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute
are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.
Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series
of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an
increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU's
National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of
"a creeping militarization" of homeland security.
"There's a notion that whenever there's an important problem, that the
thing to do is to call in the boys in green," Healy said, "and that's at
odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of
standing armies to keep the peace."
McHale stressed that the response units will be subject to the act, that
only 8 percent of their personnel will be responsible for security and
that their duties will be to protect the force, not other law
enforcement. For decades, the military has assigned larger units to
respond to civil disturbances, such as during the Los Angeles riot in
1992.
U.S. forces are already under heavy strain, however. The first reaction
force is built around the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade
Combat Team, which returned in April after 15 months in Iraq. The team
includes operations, aviation and medical task forces that are to be
ready to deploy at home or overseas within 48 hours, with units
specializing in chemical decontamination, bomb disposal, emergency care
and logistics.
The one-year domestic mission, however, does not replace the brigade's
next scheduled combat deployment in 2010. The brigade may get additional
time in the United States to rest and regroup, compared with other
combat units, but it may also face more training and operational
requirements depending on its homeland security assignments.
Renuart said the Pentagon is accounting for the strain of fighting two
wars, and the need for troops to spend time with their families. "We
want to make sure the parameters are right for Iraq and Afghanistan," he
said. The 1st Brigade's soldiers "will have some very aggressive
training, but will also be home for much of that."
Although some Pentagon leaders initially expected to build the next two
response units around combat teams, they are likely to be drawn mainly
from reserves and the National Guard, such as the 218th Maneuver
Enhancement Brigade from South Carolina, which returned in May after
more than a year in Afghanistan.
Now that Pentagon strategy gives new priority to homeland security and
calls for heavier reliance on the Guard and reserves, McHale said,
Washington has to figure out how to pay for it.
"It's one thing to decide upon a course of action, and it's something
else to make it happen," he said. "It's time to put our money where our
mouth is."
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