Reserves, Guard unable to meet crises at home

The panel’s report said that the nation and its citizens are at risk.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military isn’t ready for a catastrophic attack on the country, and National Guard forces don’t have the equipment or training they need for the job, according to a report.

Even fewer Army National Guard units are combat-ready today than were nearly a year ago when the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves determined that 88 percent of the units were not prepared for the fight, the panel says in a new report released Thursday.

The independent commission is charged by Congress to recommend changes in law and policy concerning the Guard and Reserves.

The commission’s 400-page report concludes that the nation “does not have sufficient trained, ready forces available” to respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear weapons incident, “an appalling gap that places the nation and its citizens at greater risk.”

“Right now we don’t have the forces we need, we don’t have them trained, we don’t have the equipment,” commission Chairman Arnold Punaro said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Even though there is a lot going on in this area, we need to do a lot more. ... There’s a lot of things in the pipeline, but in the world we live in — you’re either ready or you’re not.”

In response, Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of U.S. Northern command, said the Pentagon is putting together a specialized military team that would be designed to respond to such events.

Over the next year, Renuart said, specific active duty, Guard and Reserve units will be trained, equipped and assigned to a three-tiered response force totaling about 4,000 troops. There would be a few hundred first responders, who would be followed by a second wave of about 1,200 troops that would include medical and logistics forces.

The third wave, with the remainder of that initial 4,000 troops, would include aircraft units, engineers, and other support forces, depending on the type of incident.

Punaro, a retired Marine Corps major general, had sharp criticism for Northern Command, saying that commanders there have made little progress developing detailed response plans for attacks against the homeland.

The panel, in its No. 1 recommendation, said the Defense Department must use the nation’s citizen soldiers to create an operational force that would be fully trained, equipped and ready to defend the nation, respond to crises and supplement the active-duty troops in combat.

Asked how much it would cost to implement the panel’s recommendations, Punaro said it will take billions to fully equip the Guard. The commission is going to ask the Congressional Budget Office to do a cost analysis, he said.

While noting that equipment for the reserves has increased in recent years, the report details a shortfall of about $48 billion for equipment as of 2007. And in a detailed map, it shows that in more than half the states, Army Guard units have less than 50 percent of the equipment they need.

Overall, the panel made 95 separate recommendations.