Outsourcing security

9,600 forces from the 101st were notified yesterday that they will serve a 15-month tour in Iraq starting this fall.  the Pentagon also hinted that as many as 35,000 soldiers could be shipped to Iraq by the year's end.

This will only add to the growing frustration for governors all across the country, who have watched their National Guard resources become minimized as a result of the war.  Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is irate at the lack of equipment and manpower available to help with the tornado aftermath in her state.  50 percent of the state's emergency trucks are gone.

As the Wichita Eagle writes in their Wednesday editorial, state governments all across the country are under-manned:

Just last month, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National GuardBureau, testified before Congress: "Most of the units in the Army andAir National Guard are underequipped for the jobs and the missions thatthey have to perform" on the home front. "Can we do the job? Yes, wecan. But the lack of equipment (means it takes) longer to do that job,and lost time translates into lost lives, and those lost lives areAmerican lives."

The larger concern is that Guard unitshere and elsewhere are stretched thin, especially if they have torespond to multiple disasters or are needed out of state. With anotherdangerous hurricane season looming, that's a real possibility.

All the more reason why this war is making America less secure on the home front.

Comments

[granny]

I feel called upon to make the following observation: during other wars, our industries were called upon, and gladly responded, to provide materials needed to fight the war.

Why has this president failed, as "the decider guy", to require our auto industry, for example, to pony up and produce what's needed, for there (Iraq) and for here (to replenish the State's provisions). When Chrysler was going belly up WE were expected to help them, and did...

And do you think anybody at Chrysler is living off a big fat pension, now, with a big fat golden parachute? I sure as the dickens don't remember getting a check in the mail to pay me for my "required" investment in that bail out.