US News
Military 'unprepared for domestic attack' says report
By Rich Bowden, M&C Staff Writer Feb 1, 2008, 8:16 GMT
(FILE) Kansas National Guard Battery B, 1st Battalion, 161st Field Artillery are welcomed home by friends and family outside as they arrive for a special ceremony in Pratt, Kansas, USA, 22 July 2007. The military is unprepared and the National Guard lack necessary resources to deal with a catastrophic attack a report released yesterday has said. EPA/LARRY W. SMITH
(M&C) - The military is unprepared and the National Guard lack necessary resources to deal with a catastrophic attack a report released yesterday has said.
A study from the Commission of the National Guard and Reserves said, while contingency plans were being made for overseas interventions where necessary, no similar level of preparedness existed at home.
The study found the lack of readiness for a chemical, biological or nuclear attack was “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,” the commission’s chairman, Arnold L. Punaro, a retired Marine Corps general, said in an interview with the New York Times. “Even though there is a lot going on in this area, we need to do a lot more.”
General Punaro added, “There’s a lot of things in the pipeline, but in the world we live in, you’re either ready or you’re not.”
The General admitted that to prepare the military for such a catastrophic attack would cost billions and he said the commission had called upon the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate.
However the NYT reports that Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr. of the Air Force, commander of the United States Northern Command responded to the study by saying the Pentagon was committed to establishing a rapid response force over the next year to deal with such a catastrophe.
The three-tiered response force would total about 4,000 troops said the general, including first-response forces, medical and logistic troops.
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Older Talkback
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I guess it is high time you guys dispose of the military industrial complex once and for all.These guys keep up dreaming schemes to extort money from the taxpayer to line the pockets of some tycoons .There is no menace of a massive nuclear attack from any nation on earth ,whatsoever .There is however a dire need of transforming your health care system.No less than 100.000 amereicans die every year for no reason at all but the greed of your insurance companies,from the WAshington POst:
A separate study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine provided further evidence that the United States often falls short on health outcomes despite spending more per capita on health care than any other country. That research, also published today in Health Affairs, found that the United States ranked worst among 19 countries in the number of deaths that could have been prevented through better access to timely and effective health care.
Had the United States performed as well as the top three countries -- France, Japan and Australia -- it would have seen about 101,000 fewer deaths per year from conditions such as hypertension, appendicitis, tuberculosis, and colon and cervical cancers.
unquote.
Such an article and the findings it points to would cause a storm of indignation if such deficiency was found in our health care system in Europe .It shoyuld be similare in the USA .However especially your republican presidential candidates systematicaly ignore these issues and prefer to concentrate on issues such as terrorism because it allows them to use the paranoia instigated by Bush to divert money from health care into the armament industry .
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TimFeb 1st, 2008 - 09:53:16
Bring our National Guard home!
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