A couple of weeks ago, after tornados razed most of Greensburg, Kansas, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) had the temerity to note that much of the state’s National Guard equipment is being used in Iraq, which in turn hampered the recovery effort. The White House hit back, rejecting the premise and blaming Sebelius.
Who was right? Take a guess.
While the Defense Department has pushed extra equipment to units in hurricane-prone states in part to compensate for what has been ordered to Iraq, an ABCNews.com investigation has found some Plains and western states have few if any helicopters on hand to respond quickly to a disaster.
And a backup system of sharing helicopters between states may not be as helpful as it’s billed, experts say.
“We’re on the ragged edge” in Nebraska, the state’s adjutant general, Roger Lempke, told a panel of concerned U.S. lawmakers Thursday, describing the absence of helicopters in his state. Nebraska’s contingent of Blackhawk helicopters are deployed in Iraq, leaving few aircraft for disaster relief missions at home.
The central and western United States faces a summer of predicted above-average wildfire activity and an unusually high spate of tornado activity.
The Arkansas National Guard doesn’t have a single helicopter left. National Guards in Kansas, Texas and Montana report the vast majority of their helicopters are deployed as well. Colorado’s National Guard has deployed 17 of its 20 helicopters to Iraq.
The argument from the administration is that if there’s a disaster in one state, equipment came from a neighboring state. But a) the neighboring state probably can’t help much since its equipment is also gone; and b) occasionally timing matters. “In cases of natural disaster, an hour or two, or the 24 hours that it takes to fly a helicopter from New Jersey or Ohio or New York to Pennsylvania” could be the difference “between life and death,” said Rep. Jay Carney, D-Pa., at yesterday’s congressional hearing on National Guard readiness.
For that matter, it’s not just helicopters. At the same hearing, National Guard leaders explained that equipment shortages are common, and routinely, the “driver of a National Guard truck [is] younger … than the equipment he or she is operating.”
On a related note, reader S.W. alerted me to this story.
The system for delivering badly needed gear to Marines in Iraq has failed to meet many urgent requests for equipment from troops in the field, according to an internal document obtained by The Associated Press.
Of more than 100 requests from deployed Marine units between February 2006 and February 2007, less than 10 percent have been fulfilled, the document says. It blamed the bureaucracy and a “risk-averse” approach by acquisition officials.
Among the items held up were a mine resistant vehicle and a hand-held laser system.
“Process worship cripples operating forces,” according to the document. “Civilian middle management lacks technical and operational currency.”
The Guard is struggling over here, the troops are struggling over there. I guess we go to war with the administration we have, not the administration we might want or wish to have at a later time.