[Vision2020] Guard Deployment Hurt Response

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Officials: Guard Deployment Hurt Response

by Robert Burns, Associated Press, Washington Post
September 9th, 2005
    
Officials: Guard Deployment Hurt Response

By ROBERT BURNS
The Associated Press
Friday, September 9, 2005; 6:14 PM


BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -- The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops 
from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered 
those states' initial storm response, military and civilian officials said 
Friday.

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that 
"arguably" a day at most of response time was lost due to the absence of the 
Mississippi National Guard's 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana's 256th Infantry 
Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq.

"Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and 
capabilities could have been brought to bear," said Blum.

Blum said that to replace those units' command and control equipment, he 
dispatched personnel from Guard division headquarters from Kansas and Minnesota 
shortly after the storm struck.

Blum also said that in a worst-case scenario, up to 50,000 additional 
Guardsmen per month will be needed in Louisiana or Mississippi over the next four 
months to continue providing relief, law enforcement and other post-hurricane 
services.

Those 200,000 troops, if needed, would represent nearly two-thirds of the 
approximately 319,000 Guard troops available nationwide.

Blum said his staff has almost completed a plan for 30-day rotations of Guard 
units so that no one will have to serve in the Gulf Coast for more than a 
month.

There are about 30,000 Guardsmen in Iraq, with a smaller number in 
Afghanistan, Kosovo and elsewhere overseas.

Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., whose waterfront home here was washed away in the 
storm, told reporters that the absence of the deployed Mississippi Guard units 
made it harder for local officials to coordinate their initial response.

"What you lost was a lot of local knowledge," Taylor said, as well as 
equipment that could have been used in recovery operations.

"The best equipment went with them, for obvious reasons," especially 
communications equipment, he added.
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Vision2020 Post by Ted Moffett
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