Military says training, gear needed for future disasters
Chief of National Guard Bureau says more money also is needed to improve interagency training between the Homeland Security and Defense departments.
The National Guard is beginning to address flaws in its response to Hurricane Katrina, but more work -- and money -- is needed to better prepare the state-run units to respond to catastrophes, the chief of the National Guard Bureau said Friday.
The Guard particularly needs a boost in funding for new gear to replace much of its best equipment either damaged or left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan. To make up for the shortfalls, states have signed equipment-sharing compacts.
But Lt. Gen. Steven Blum said he feared those agreements may not be enough to prepare the Guard to respond quickly to domestic disasters. "The equipment piece is where I need help from this body," Blum told the Senate Armed Services Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. "We need to address the shortages here, now."
Blum said the dearth of equipment would hamper his force's ability to respond to multiple events in several states at once. "Mother Nature doesn't throw this stuff at us one at a time," Blum said. "We could handle them better if we were better equipped."
Indeed, the Army already has set aside $700 million to buy National Guard pre-positioned satellite communications packages. The new equipment would give Guard units access to communications, even if cellular towers and other lines of communications failed.
"We have to worst-case it," Blum said. "In the past, we did not." But while the Guard has better communications tools than it did during the Katrina response, Blum cautioned that he needs additional funding to buy more satellite packages.
In response to lawmakers' questions, Blum also stressed that the military needs more money for better interagency training between the Homeland Security and Defense departments. "No good team doesn't practice," he said.
Paul McHale, Defense undersecretary for homeland defense, said Defense officials are implementing several recommendations in a White House report on the Katrina response, including better integration between active-duty and Guard units during training exercises.
McHale also acknowledged that active-duty military, National Guard units and civilian first responders need to devise ways to better knit together communications and other assets. Already, the department has begun to use a central switchboard through which military units and police forces can pass their communications.
Despite the need, U.S. Northern Command's top unfunded priority for fiscal 2007 is $10 million for an interoperable communications program. NORTHCOM coordinates homeland defense. "You don't have what you need now," said Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee Chairman John Cornyn, R-Texas.