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 Text of Amendment

Text of Leahy-Bond Letter on the Guard's equipment needs.

The New York Times, September 28, 2005 When Storm Hit, National Guard Was Deluged Too

The New York Times, September 28, 2005,
At Hearings, States and National Guard Make Appeals for Aid  

Remarks Of Senator Patrick Leahy, Defense Appropriations Bill Markup, Defense Subcommittee, Senate Appropriations Committee, Monday, September 26, 2005

USA Today, September 20, 2005, Guard Relief Hurt by Obsolete Equipment

Defense Daily, September 16, 2005, Lawmakers Say Guard Needs $1.3 Billion
In New Equipment For Future Disasters

Background On The Leahy-Bond Amendment
To Replenish National Guard Equipment Stocks

Here’s the text of the Leahy-Bond letter on the Guard’s equipment needs --  

September 13, 2005

The Honorable George W. Bush
The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As co-chairs of the 85-member U.S. Senate National Guard Caucus, we urge the Administration to provide $1.3 billion for National Guard equipment in the next applicable supplemental spending bill.  Due to longstanding shortfalls and the high operational tempo in Iraq and Afghanistan, the National Guard has a perilously low level of equipment available for natural disasters, a potential large-scale terrorist attack and readiness training.

The National Guard is carrying out the dual-role missions for which our forefathers envisioned.  In Iraq, thousands of Air and Army National Guard forces comprise almost 50 percent of the force engaged in counter-insurgency operations aimed at establishing political stability.  In the Gulf States region National Guard forces from all 50 states and 4 protectorates are working through Emergency Management Assistance Compacts (EMACs) to supplement forces from Mississippi and Louisiana.  Over 45,000 Guardsmen are deployed to assist in the search, relief, and recovery effort.  Serving under Title 32 with federal financing and local command-and-control, the National Guard are working tirelessly with local, state, and federal law enforcement, first-responder, and relief personnel. 

The National Guard has deployed many of its resources to Iraq and Afghanistan, consequently there are insufficient reserves of equipment available to respond to future disasters and military contingencies.  The National Guard has approximately 34 percent of its equipment available for use in the United States with significant shortages in trucks, engineering equipment, night-vision goggles, information systems, and communications equipment.

The National Guard should be given the flexibility to determine its most pressing requirements, similar to that which exists in the National Guard and Reserve Equipment Account of the annual DoD appropriations bill. Therefore, we urge the Administration to act quickly to fill deficiencies in the National Guard’s equipment account and look forward to discussing this important matter with you in the near future.

Sincerely,

Christopher S. Bond                                                                  Patrick J. Leahy
Co-Chair                                                                                  Co-Chair
U.S. Senate National Guard Caucus                                           U.S. Senate National Guard Caucus

 

The New York Times
September 28, 2005

When Storm Hit, National Guard Was Deluged Too

By Scott Shane and Thom Shanker

The morning Hurricane Katrina thundered ashore, Louisiana National Guard commanders thought they were prepared to save their state. But when 15-foot floodwaters swept into their headquarters, cut their communications and disabled their high-water trucks, they had their hands full just saving themselves.

For a crucial 24 hours after landfall on Aug. 29, Guard officers said, they were preoccupied with protecting their nerve center from the waves topping the windows at Jackson Barracks and rescuing soldiers who could not swim. The next morning, they had to evacuate their entire headquarters force of 375 guardsmen by boat and helicopter to the Superdome.

It was an inauspicious start to the National Guard response to the storm, which ultimately fell so short that it has set off a national debate about whether the Pentagon should take charge immediately after catastrophes. President Bush has asked Congress to study the question, and top Defense Department and Guard officials are scheduled to testify on the response before a House panel on Wednesday.

Other elements of the response to Hurricane Katrina are also coming into question. The New Orleans police chief, Edwin P. Compass III, resigned Tuesday after the department announced that 250 police officers - roughly 15 percent of the force - could face discipline for leaving their posts without permission during the storm and its aftermath.

The former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael D. Brown, testified in Congress that he had warned the White House of impending disaster several days before the storm struck.

In interviews, Guard commanders and state and local officials in Louisiana said the Guard performed well under the circumstances. But they say it was crippled in the early days by a severe shortage of troops that they blame in part on the deployment to Iraq of 3,200 Louisiana guardsmen. While the Pentagon disputes that Iraq was a factor, those on the ground say the war has clearly strained a force intended to be the nation's bulwark against natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

Reinforcements from other states' National Guard units, slowed by the logistics and red tape involved in summoning troops from civilian jobs and moving them thousands of miles, did not arrive in large numbers until the fourth day after the hurricane passed. The coordinating task was so daunting that Louisiana officials turned to the Pentagon to help organize the appeal for help.

At the convention center, 222 soldiers trained in levee repair, not police work, locked themselves into an exhibit hall at the convention center rather than challenge an angry and desperate crowd of more than 10,000 hurricane victims at the center.

The near-total collapse of communications made every task far more difficult, forcing some Guard commanders to use "runners, like in World War I," as one put it. With landlines, cellphones and many satellite phones out of action, the frequencies used by the radios still functioning were often so jammed that they were useless.

Disaster experts said that even with perfect planning and management, the 5,700 Louisiana National Guard troops available were far too few.

"What do you expect of 5,700 soldiers when so much of a state is destroyed?" said James Jay Carafano, who studies emergency response at the Heritage Foundation. "If we want the military to close the 72-hour gap in responding to natural disasters, we'll have to come up with a new model."

Yet the very effectiveness of the eventual military response - which climbed to 35,000 guardsmen and active-duty troops - only underscored questions that will long haunt Louisiana guard officials: Should commanders have moved their headquarters to higher ground before the storm? Could they have better headed off the lawlessness or built more resilient communications?

And especially, could they have moved more troops faster to New Orleans and other devastated areas?

"I think to a man, we will live with the pain of this experience," said Col. Douglas Mouton, 41, commander of 2,500 Louisiana Guard engineers. The restoration of order at the convention center, when it came, was "phenomenally quick," Colonel Mouton said. "I think the frustration we all have - the country has - is, why couldn't it have been done a lot quicker?"

It was Colonel Mouton who made the decision not to send his soldiers into the crowd at the convention center. A 41-year-old New Orleans architect whose own house was destroyed by the flood, Colonel Mouton defended that decision but said the scenes of anguish that became an international emblem of American failure were particularly painful for local guardsmen.

"These are fellow New Orleanians who are suffering," he said, "people that I go to Mardi Gras parades with."

When the storm hit, 4,000 Louisiana guardsmen were on duty, including 1,250 in New Orleans and surrounding parishes, Guard officials said. By the next day, all 5,700 Guard members available for duty were on the job, they said.

The senior commander of National Guard troops at the Pentagon, Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, said the Iraq deployment did not slow the hurricane response. He said that Louisiana Guard troops were "in the water and on the streets throughout the affected areas rescuing people within four hours of Katrina's passing," and that out-of-state troops arrived as soon as they could be mustered.

But state Guard commanders disagreed. Asked whether the 3,200 soldiers deployed to Iraq could have made a difference, Lt. Col. Pete Schneider, a spokesman for the Louisiana Guard, replied: "Well, of course. We would have used them if we'd had them. We've always known in the event of a catastrophic storm in New Orleans that we'd use our resources up pretty fast."

There is little disagreement that Guard equipment sent to Iraq, particularly hundreds of high-water trucks, fuel trucks and satellite phones, could have helped speed the response. The chairmen of the Senate National Guard caucus, Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, and Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said in a Sept. 13 letter to Mr. Bush that the Guard nationally had only 34 percent of its equipment available for use in the United States.

With about 150 high-water trucks available statewide, Guard commanders placed most of them outside the danger zone at bases more than two hours' drive from New Orleans. They risked parking 20 trucks at the low-lying Jackson Barracks so they could be immediately available.

Even though the National Hurricane Center warned that Hurricane Katrina might be catastrophic, they did not consider setting up headquarters elsewhere. In 10 years with the Guard, said Col. Tom Beron, who oversees most of the Guard's trucks and drivers, he had never seen more than a few inches of water on the grounds and none inside the buildings. But by midmorning on Aug. 29, as the flood approached the second floor of an armory where 35 truck mechanics, many of them unable to swim, had found refuge, Colonel Beron decided they needed to get out of that building.

The trucks were useless. "There's not a truck in the U.S. Army arsenal that could get through that water," Colonel Beron said.

After ferrying the mechanics to the three-story headquarters building in a borrowed fishing boat, guardsmen grabbed civilian neighbors as they floated past.

"It was best to have a rope tied to you, because the water would just carry you away," said Col. Glenn Curtis, deputy commander of the state's response to the hurricane.

The relocation of the Guard command on Aug. 30 to the Superdome from the flooded barracks assured attention to the huge crowd there. But as word arrived Wednesday night of the ballooning numbers at the convention center, commanders felt they had no soldiers to spare.

By happenstance, there were guardsmen at the convention center: backhoe operators, truck drivers and mechanics who had chosen a huge exhibit hall to stage their heavy equipment.

Of the 222 there on Wednesday night, almost none were trained in police work or riot control. Many did not have weapons, said Colonel Mouton, the engineers' commander. "We didn't expect a martial law situation," he said. "We were building levees."

Thirsty, hungry civilians began banging on the doors. But commanders decided opening them would pose a danger of a stampede as people tried to get at the Guard's supplies of food and water, enough for perhaps 1 percent of the crowd, Colonel Mouton said.

"We understand we're soldiers," Colonel Mouton said. "But what we had at the convention center was a partially armed group of engineers, ready to operate equipment," - and with enough food and water to anger 20,000 people.

On Sept. 1 , he withdrew the engineers to the Superdome.

Aware that the Guard would be stretched thin, state officials had contacted other states two days before the storm hit about sending troops under an agreement called the Emergency Management Assistance Contract. The day the storm hit, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana asked President Bush for all the help he could provide. After touring New Orleans by helicopter the next day, the governor asked General Blum, of the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon, to speed and coordinate aid from other states.

Some states got troops there quickly. Sgt. Lawrence Ouellette, a Rhode Island guardsman who works as a police officer, was in court in Central Falls, R.I., on Aug. 31, when he got the call. Just 24 hours later, he and his fellow soldiers had flown to a base near New Orleans and then helicoptered to the Superdome to help.

At least one governor, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, has complained publicly that his early offer of help went unanswered. Officials said New Mexico offered 200 Guard members the day the storm hit, and the troops were packed and ready to move the next day. But no orders were received to move those troops until two days later, Sept. 1, and 400 soldiers finally flew to the hurricane zone on Sept. 2.

At the Pentagon, National Guard officials offered no explanation for the apparent delay. An officer not involved in the specific case said the reasons might include lack of aircraft and housing for the troops or uncertainty about their mission.

By week's end, the first of some 10,000 active-duty troops had arrived to back up the Guard, doing everything from vaccinating civilians against tetanus to manning water-distribution points.

In the weeks since the military presence brought order to the Gulf Coast, officials in Washington and statehouses have suggested that the state-controlled National Guard is no match for a disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina. Some have suggested that the military have a domestic force ready for instant deployment to a disaster zone, while others say the Pentagon should simply assume responsibility for communications and other support services. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he expected a debate on the military's role.

"It's up to the country, the government, to think that through and decide how they want to be arranged for a catastrophic event," he said.

The New York Times
September 28, 2005

At Hearings, States and National Guard Make Appeals for Aid  

By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - The National Guard has only a third of the equipment it needs to respond to domestic disasters and terrorist attacks and will need $7 billion to acquire the radios, trucks, construction machinery and medical gear required, the Guard's top commander told a Congressional committee on Wednesday.

Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that after Hurricane Katrina, guardsmen using old radios were unable to talk to active-duty troops with the latest communications systems as they patrolled New Orleans.

Addressing Representative John P. Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who served in the Marine Corps during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, General Blum said, "I'm dealing with radios, sir, that you probably saw the last time you were in battle fatigues."

General Blum said $1.3 billion was needed immediately. The chairmen of the Senate National Guard Caucus, Senators Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, and Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, wrote President Bush this month, urging him to include that amount in a supplemental spending bill.

General Blum said the problem had become acute as Guard units had deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, taking the newest equipment with them and then leaving it there for replacement soldiers to use. That practice was wise, he said, but left the home front with an outdated and dwindling supply of gear, at best about 34 percent of what was needed.

In 2001, the Guard estimated that it had about 74 percent of the equipment it required at home, General Blum told the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. That figure was deemed acceptable because the Guard was viewed as a "strategic reserve" that would have time to acquire materiel in time of need, he said.

But, he said, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina showed the need for the Guard to be fully equipped and ready to deploy instantly in a crisis.

The general's appeal, coming after the huge Guard deployment to the Gulf Coast, which peaked at 50,087 soldiers on Sept. 10, drew supportive remarks from subcommittee members.

But another issue arising from the hurricane response, President Bush's call for a discussion of whether the Pentagon should take the lead in responding to catastrophes, met with some skepticism. Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, said the proposal was being put forward only because the Bush administration had politicized the Federal Emergency Management Agency and downgraded it by merging it with the Department of Homeland Security.

"The president seems to think we'll use the Guard and Reserve in Iraq and the Army in Louisiana," Mr. Obey said, calling that approach "backward."

But Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, cautioned that the president's recent comments "were meant to frame an analysis, not to provide definitive answers." A lead role for the Pentagon is being contemplated only in the most extreme disasters, Mr. McHale told the panel.

General Blum's appeal was not the only post-Katrina urging on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. At the Senate Finance Committee, the governors of the states hardest hit - Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Bob Riley of Alabama - said swift enactment of stalled legislation to give Medicaid coverage to hurricane victims would be one of the most important steps Washington could take to bring relief to the stricken areas.

"We've got people who have needs today," Ms. Blanco said, "people who would never have imagined themselves needing Medicaid."

Senators Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is the committee chairman, and Max Baucus of Montana, the top-ranking Democrat on the panel, are sponsoring legislation that would extend coverage under Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, to thousands of hurricane victims. Many have been evacuated to states where they are not eligible for Medicaid. Other people have lost their jobs and, with them, their health insurance.

The measure is opposed by the Bush administration and is being blocked by a few Republican senators who object to its $9 billion price tag. In a letter to Senate leaders, Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, said that states were better equipped to provide for the health needs of hurricane victims and that money was available for this purpose.

Senators from both parties promised to fight for the legislation.

"We can work with everybody, including the administration, or against them," Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, said. "And I'm prepared to go either way."

At the White House, Joshua B. Bolten, the budget director, told reporters that the administration did not favor making federal flood insurance payments to hurricane victims who did not carry the insurance.

"For the federal government to step in after the fact," Mr. Bolten said, "would be to undermine the effectiveness of the system."

(From markup session in the Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee)

Remarks Of Senator Patrick Leahy
Defense Appropriations Bill Markup
Defense Subcommittee
Senate Appropriations Committee
Monday, September 26, 2005

“As co-chair of the National Guard Caucus I want to thank the Subcommittee for so strongly supporting the National Guard in this bill.  Senator Bond — the other caucus co-chair — and I recognize the critical investments made in the Guard’s warfighting capability.

“The more than $300 million set aside for the Air and Army Guard in the Guard and Reserve Equipment Account, as well as the funds that are spread out through the supplemental, will greatly help the Guard’s ability to fight abroad.  We want to help the Subcommittee hold as much of this funding during Conference.  It’s regrettable that the House has not funded this critical account in the bill.

“We do still need to address the enormous equipment requirements of the National Guard to respond to emergencies here at home.  Recently Lieutenant General Steven Blum noted that the Guard has only about 35 percent of what is officially required to respond to hurricanes and other natural disasters, or a catastrophic terrorist attack at home. 

“The Guard’s requirements of trucks, tractors, communications and night-vision equipment have been under funded for years.  Much of the equipment the Guard does have is now overseas, with no prospect that we will see it again back here at home anytime soon.

“Senator Bond and I have requested on behalf of the entire National Guard Caucus that the President include $1.3 billion for additional Guard equipment in the next supplemental spending bills for hurricane relief.

“The amount we have requested from the President just meets immediate needs, which are clearly spelled out in a recent report from the National Guard Bureau.   

“Time is not our ally.  The longer it takes to restock the Guard’s equipment, the more we are flirting with disaster.

“This is an urgent matter that I hope the Subcommittee can find a way to address sooner rather than later.”

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Associated Press
September 27, 2005

Senators call for more National Guard funding

By BETSY TAYLOR

The National Guard has taken on a larger role in the fight against terrorism and in responding to natural disasters since 2001 and needs an additional $1.3 billion in funding, Sen. Kit Bond said Monday.

Bond, a Missouri Republican, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., co-chair the Senate National Guard Caucus. In a letter earlier this month to President Bush, Bond and Leahy said the Guard has just 34 percent of its equipment available for use in the U.S., with significant shortages in trucks, night-vision goggles, information systems, and engineering and communications equipment.

As a result, the Guard has dangerously little equipment available to respond to natural disasters, a potential terrorist attack and readiness training, Bond said during a visit to a National Guard facility at Jefferson Barracks in south St. Louis County.

Bond and Leahy have asked the president to include the additional funding in the next supplemental spending bill for hurricane relief.

"The amount we have requested from the president just meets immediate needs, which are clearly spelled out in a recent report from the National Guard Bureau," Leahy said Monday in Washington during remarks about defense appropriations in Washington.

"Time is not our ally. The longer it takes to restock the Guard's equipment, the more we are flirting with disaster."

Bond, who commanded the Missouri National Guard when he served two terms as Missouri governor, said he knows firsthand that the Guard "is an absolutely critical part of our national response." But, he said more equipment is crucial in order to better use the Guard's citizen-soldiers.

The Guard supports efforts to increase and update its equipment, spokesman Jack Harrison said.

There are about 440,000 people in the Army and Air National Guard, and Harrison said there is no question the Guard has taken on a more active role in the past four years.

In the month before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, about 4,000 members of the Army Guard were mobilized compared to more than 70,000 last month. Figures were not immediately available for the Air Guard, thought they would be much smaller, Harrison said.

When Guard units deploy, they take their best equipment with them and it often stays in place for the next units, even as Guardsmen return home, he said.

Response to Hurricane Katrina to help along devastated parts of the Gulf Coast also made it clear that improved communications systems are needed, something that the chief of the National Guard Bureau, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, has spoken about recently, Harrison said.

The National Guard funding could pass quickly if it is added to the bill, Bond said.

"We expect the emergency supplemental bill to be delivered to us in early October. We hope to have it passed in a week," Bond said. 

USA Today
September 20, 2005

Guard Relief Hurt by Obsolete Equipment

Top general: Troops need better radios

By: Dave Moniz

WASHINGTON -- Hurricane Katrina exposed serious weaknesses in the National Guard's communications systems, particularly a shortage of high-tech radios and satellite communications gear, the Guard's top general said Monday.

If it's going to protect the USA while also fighting overseas, the Guard needs better equipment, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, head of the National Guard Bureau, said in an interview with USA TODAY.

"We were underequipped," Blum said. "We don't need tanks and attack helicopters and artillery, but we must have state-of-the-art radios and communications."

Much of the Guard's best communications equipment was being used by troops fighting in Iraq and wasn't available for units helping Gulf Coast states recover from the hurricane, Blum said.

Many Guard military police in New Orleans were using obsolete radios as they sought to restore order, he said. That, combined with a crippled civilian communications network, made it harder for them to communicate. Many also lacked night-vision goggles.

After Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, about 50,000 Guard troops were sent to states battered by the storm, the largest such domestic response in Guard history, said Blum, who oversees Army and Air National Guard units in all 50 states.

The active-duty Army, which helps equip the Guard, recognizes the deficiencies, said Blum, who has met with Pentagon officials to find more money for new equipment. "The leadership of the Army is committed to addressing the problem," he said.

Last week, Sens. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wrote President Bush asking for $1.3 billion to buy new equipment for the Guard.

Long-standing shortages and the stress of fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have left the Guard with "a perilously low level of equipment available for natural disasters," the senators wrote.

Only 34% of the Guard's equipment is available for use in the USA, the letter said. The worst shortages are in trucks, night-vision goggles, engineering equipment and communications gear, the letter said. The Guard has historically used hand-me-down equipment from the active-duty military. For example, the Army Guard is using radios from the Vietnam War era and needs 37,000 newer radios, according to a recent Guard budget briefing paper posted on its website.

Two wars and a recruiting shortfall have taxed the 350,000-member Army National Guard this year. At one point, about 40% of the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq were from the Guard or Reserves.

Defense Daily
September 16, 2005

Lawmakers Say Guard Needs $1.3 Billion In New Equipment For Future Disasters

By George Cahlink

The National Guard needs $1.3 billion in the next supplemental spending bill for Hurricane Katrina relief to help buy new equipment that is running in short supply with tens of thousand guardsmen deployed in the Middle East and along the Gulf Coast, according to key lawmakers.

"Due to longstanding equipment shortfalls and high operational tempo in Iraq and Afghanistan, the National Guard has a perilously low level of equipment available for natural disasters, a potential large scale terrorist attack and readiness training," Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), co-chairman of the 85-member Senate National Guard caucus, wrote in a Sept. 13 letter to President Bush.

The lawmakers said because so many of the National Guard’s resources have been deployed overseas there’s "insufficient resources" to respond to future disasters. About 34 percent of the Guard’s resources are available for use right now with shortages in trucks, engineering equipment, night vision goggles, information systems and communications equipments, the lawmakers said.

Lawmakers noted about 50 percent of the troops in Iraq are Air and National Guard members and another 45,000 guardsmen have been deployed to the Gulf Coast. They urged Bush to give the National Guard "full flexibility" in deciding what equipment should be purchased rather than earmarking it for specific items.

 

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