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Banned
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Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv
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Hey Marv....I directed my last post at your puzzling comments, and now I'm puzzled by what you had to say in your last post, too. I don't understand what you are talking about in either of your posts.
Bullshit emanating from Tony Snow aside, here is more neutral reporting that described a month ago.....and back in January, the risks to Kansas if a severe tornado struck, what Kansas's Governor was attempting to do to lessen the problem for her state, and it described the poorly equipped status of US based national guard units:
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http://www.army.mil/-news/2007/04/13...training-gaps/
Guard Leaders Urge Solid Funding to Close Equipment, Training Gaps
Apr 13, 2007
BY Ms. Donna Miles, American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON (American Forces Press Service, April 11, 2007) - The National Guard force is second to none in terms of the quality of its people, but severe equipment shortfalls are keeping it from being fully ready, the chief of the National Guard Bureau told Congress today.
Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum urged the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee to support the fiscal 2008 National Guard budget requests to ensure the Guard can continue serving as the country's "21st century Minutemen and -women."
Guard forces deployed overseas are "superbly equipped and superbly trained, ... and we want for nothing," Lt. Gen. Blum told the subcommittee.
But he said the situation at home isn't nearly as rosy. "It's a much different story, and it's not a good story," he said.
"The National Guard today, I am sad to say, is not a fully ready force," the general said. "Unresourced shortfalls still exist that approach $40 billion to provide the equipment and the training that I personally feel your Army and Air National Guard are expected to have to be able to respond to the citizens of the United States."
Lt. Gen. Blum introduced two Guard members who exemplify this gap.
One, an Oregon Air Guard staff sergeant who just completed a third combat tour in Iraq, returned home to his unit to train on equipment built in 1953. "Now imagine being a combat controller in a critical mission like that and operating with unreliable old equipment built in 1953," Lt. Gen. Blum told the subcommittee. "I think that says it all. So while we have the best people, we have some significant equipment challenges."
<b>A Kansas Army Guardsman who accompanied Lt. Gen. Blum to the hearing faces an even more serious issue, he said. Returned from Iraq in November, the Soldier "doesn't have a problem of old equipment," the general said. "He has a problem of no equipment."
His unit, after leaving its own equipment in Iraq for the unit that replaced them, returned home to just two Humvees, both deemed "not good enough to go to war," Lt. Gen. Blum said. "And that's the equipment he has in his unit today."
Should a tornado or other stateside disaster require a Guard mobilization, the unit's ability to respond would be minimized, "not because of the great people in it, but because of the lack of equipment that is in that unit right now," he said.</b>
Lt. Gen. Blum said the problem has reached epidemic levels, particularly in the Army. Most of the units in the Army and Air National Guard are underequipped for the jobs and the missions they have to perform with no notice here at home," he said. "Can we do the job? Yes, we can. But the lack of equipment makes it take longer to do that job, and lost time translates into lost lives, and those lost lives are American lives."
He urged Congress to address these shortfalls, noting the defense bargain the National Guard represents. The Army Guard makes up almost 40 percent of the Army's combat, combat support and combat service support structure, but costs just 11 percent of the Army's budget, he said. Similarly, the Air Guard provides more than one-third of the Air Force capability, at just 6 percent of the Air Force's budget.
"Plus, your Army and Air National Guard are the only Department of Defense forces that can be called upon by the governors with no notice to do what is necessary right here in the zip codes where your constituents reside," he said.
Lt. Gen. Blum said these statistics demonstrate the importance of the National Guard, not only in the global war on terror, but as an on-call force ready to respond to stateside emergencies.
"This nation cannot afford the consequences of an unready Army and Air National Guard," Lt. Gen. Blum said. "A strong and properly resourced National Guard, I think, is the best credible deterrent for any of our adversaries overseas that might miscalculate and think that we are unable to respond."
Army Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn, vice chief of the National Guard Bureau, reported that recruiting and retention in the Army Guard is on the upswing since last year. "We have averaged, at a net, over 1,000 a month to our end strength," he said.
He urged Congress to provide the resources these troops need to be mission-ready, citing the newly retired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker's mantra, "Don't confuse enthusiasm with capability."
"I can tell you that we have the enthusiasm," Lt. Gen. Vaughn told the senators. "The capabilities, you buy. You buy it in terms of training dollars, and you buy it in terms of equipment."
Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig McKinley, the Air National Guard's vice chief, joined Lt. Gen. Blum and Lt. Gen. Vaughn in urging congressional support for the National Guard budget requests. In the midst of tremendous "churn" within the force -- much of it due to the Base Realignment and Closure process -- the Air Guard continues to operate as a highly effective force, he said.
"Your Air National Guard is ready to fight today," he said. "They are totally integrated in the United States Air Force in the global war on terror; they are fighting the away game very professionally in all theaters of the globe, and we are also providing great support here at home."
Maintaining this capability requires solid funding so the force can modernize, Lt. Gen. McKinley said. "It is extremely important to the Air National Guard that our Air Force continues to recapitalize so we can transition the 20th century Air National Guard into a highly effective combat capable 21st century Air National Guard," he said.
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Quote:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0410/p01s01-usmi.html
USA > Military
from the April 10, 2007 edition
....Yet the Guard is dealing with its own specific issues. The National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon, led by Army Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, oversees each state's Guard unit and commits to state governors that at least half of the total force of 350,000 guardsmen are available at any time to respond to a national disaster. The Guard more than meets those requirements, says one Defense official.
However, it's contending with equipment shortages that are leaving 88 percent of units with less than half the equipment required to perform missions at home, according to a commission mandated by Congress to look at such issues.
In 2002, for example, four units had to provide their equipment to forces deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan. In 2005, 12 units had to do so, according to the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, citing National Guard Bureau data.
About 25,300 guardsmen are now serving in Iraq. The 13,000 guardsmen cited in the Pentagon's announcement Monday are stationed in four states: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Indiana.
Observers outside the Pentagon believe the Defense Department may need at least twice the 13,000 additional troops from the Guard to sustain the effort in Iraq.
Much of Senator Reid's concern is based on a March report by the commission, which made a series of recommendations about how the Guard and Reserve should be resourced and structured.
"The priorities of the states and their governors are not adequately considered in the Department of Defense's policy and resourcing decisions related to the National Guard, even though governors are, and likely will continue to be, the leaders of most domestic emergency response efforts involving the National Guard," the report said.
<b>In January, General Blum testified that he had heard from governors who complained about the lack of availability of guardsmen when needed the most.
For example, Blum cited Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D), who visited her National Guard troops in Iraq but returned to find that a snowstorm had left more than 60,000 Kansans without power. "And she called me, and she said, 'You know, I don't have the engineer equipment and trucks and aviation I need to really take care of my own people right now,' " Blum recalled her telling him. "And I said, 'Governor, we share that concern.' "</b>
Blum has done much "cross-leveling" of equipment and personnel - mixing and matching both people and gear with other state Guard units to ensure they are whole. But without about $40 billion over the next several years, Blum has said he can't sustain the Guard.
"We have lost time, to be frank about it, and time translates to lives," Blum told the commission Jan. 31. "We really do need a strategy that will reequip the National Guard here at home."
Still, there is a flip side to deploying the Guard overseas: critical training, says Mark Allen, a spokesman for the Guard bureau. "They have skills that are very useful in all kinds of situations," he says.
Units who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan who were deployed to the Gulf region after hurricane Katrina could draw on their security- duty experience overseas when it came to restoring law and order after the storm.
"This training, this unit cohesion really helps you in our homeland security in critical situations, saving lives and dealing with the public," he says.
But like the active force, the Guard can become burned out, too.
"The thing that nobody knows is when guardsmen are being asked to do too much," Mr. Allen says.
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Quote:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...news-a_section
Guard equipment levels lowest since 9/11
Criticized for shortfalls after a Kansas tornado, the Pentagon chief says units have only 56% of their needed supplies.
By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
May 10, 2007
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon, bearing the brunt of criticism for shortfalls in National Guard supplies after last week's devastating tornado in Kansas, acknowledged Wednesday that Army National Guard units had only 56% of their required equipment.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told a Senate hearing that equipment levels were the lowest since the Sept. 11 attacks. He said that the Bush administration's defense budget request, which asks for $22 billion for the Army National Guard over the next five years, would take Guard units up to 76% of their authorized equipment levels.
"There's no question that there's been a drawdown of equipment in the National Guard," Gates said, adding that even before Sept. 11, Guard units normally were equipped at about 75%. "Clearly we need to follow through with this program to rebuild the stocks of equipment that are available to the National Guard."
At the hearing, a bipartisan group of senators confronted Gates with pointed questions on Guard readiness. The lawmakers argued that repeated deployments to Iraq were causing shortages in equipment needed for domestic security and national disaster response.
The issue moved back into the spotlight after Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, noted the shortfalls after a tornado flattened nearly all of Greensburg, Kan. Guard shortfalls delayed the state's emergency response, she said.
President Bush visited the town Wednesday as administration officials continued to insist that Sebelius had all the resources needed to respond to the crisis. R. David Paulison, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he had been in repeated contact with the Army general in charge of Kansas' Guard units, who assured him the Army had what it needed.
"He said he has plenty of equipment for this disaster," Paulison told reporters traveling with Bush to Kansas. "I've asked probably at least 20 times, 'Is there anything that you need that you don't have?' The answer is no. And that's from the governor, the general, the mayor and the city manager."
Sebelius reiterated the criticisms during Bush's visit. She said the state had mustered the resources to deal with the Greensburg disaster but would be hard pressed to meet any other contingencies.
"If we have another incident … that needs Guard support, I will be in a situation where we have to choose what we do — and that's a terrible choice to make," she said. "After four years [of war] there's no question that, year after year, Guard supplies are depleted not just in Kansas but all over the country."
White House and Pentagon officials have insisted that sharing agreements among the states would ensure that any shortfalls faced by one state during a disaster could be filled by neighboring states. But some experts have challenged that assertion, saying that nearly every state is running short of equipment because of overseas deployments.
"These compacts are practically nullified now because all states have people in" Iraq, said Melvyn Montano, former head of the New Mexico National Guard. "If you have four or five states around you, where are they going go get their equipment from? Because they all have been deployed."
The chorus was joined Wednesday by several senators, including Republican Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, who told Gates that his state was facing severe shortages in the military infrastructure that supported its Guard units.
The Army National Guard has told members of Congress that it had $23.6 billion in unfunded requirements that it would need to get back to 100% readiness. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said failure to fill those requirements meant that some states had only 35% of their Guard equipment.
<b>Army National Guard requirements not funded by Bush's budget include 18,600 Humvees, which would cost $2.4 billion over the next five years, and 30,100 trucks, which would require an additional $5.6 billion, according to an analysis cited by Leahy. It indicated the Guard would need $6 billion for 159 Chinook helicopters, the most costly deficiency.
"Right now, there's nothing in the budget to do this, there's no plan to resupply them, and this is creating a real concern among governors around the states," Leahy said.</b>
Gates expressed a willingness to discuss the issue with Congress, saying he was open to adding funding if it filled essential needs.....
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....so Marv, is some spin from Tony Snow going to successfully distract from what has really been going on, with this issue? It turns out that the Governor of Kansas has been a responsible official seeking support for the national guard disaster preparedness and readiness in her state, and the Bush administration has stripped guard units across the country of half of their equipment and a sizeable percentage of their manpower, and shipped it off to Iraq. The equipment has not been returned and the executive branch has not even budgeted funds to deal with remedying the equipment shortfalls, even after hurricane Katrina provided a lesson, 20 months ago, that it would be necessary to do so.
All that exists is a sharing plan for neighboring states, all averaging just 56 percent of former guard equipment levels, to try to fill in the gaps to cope with sudden weather related and other disaster related emergencies.
Ignoring the need to budget money now to replace the equipment sent to Iraq where it wears out more quickly in the harsh conditions there, and ignoring the need to add to the scarce and overburdened remaining equipment here in the US, makes the yearly increase in total federal treasury debt appear to be less than the $500 billion plus, that it now averages, just as supplemental appropriation requests, instead of budgeting for the predicted expensed in the ongoing six year war in Afghanistan and four year long war in Iraq, allows Bush to claim in his yearly SOTU addresses, that his administration is "reducing the budget deficit".
The intent is to pawn this guard equipment shortfall, and the Iraq war itself, onto the next presidential administration, right next to the Bush commitment to "rebuild" New Orleans.....
Last edited by host; 05-10-2007 at 10:57 PM..
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