Strain of Iraq War Slows
Relief
Washington Post
Strain of Iraq War Means the Relief Burden Will Have to Be Shared
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Page A14
With thousands of their citizen-soldiers away fighting in Iraq, states hit
hard by Hurricane Katrina scrambled to muster forces for rescue and security
missions yesterday -- calling up Army bands and water-purification teams, among
other units, and requesting help from distant states and the active-duty
military.
As the devastation threatened to overwhelm state resources, federal
authorities called on the Pentagon to mobilize active-duty aircraft, ships and
troops and set up an unprecedented task force to coordinate a wider military
response, said officials from the Northern Command, which oversees homeland
defense.
National Guard officials in the states acknowledged that the scale of the
destruction is stretching the limits of available manpower while placing
another extraordinary demand on their troops -- most of whom have already
served tours in Iraq or Afghanistan or in homeland defense missions since
2001.
More than 6,000 Guard members were mobilized in Louisiana, Mississippi,
Alabama and Florida when the storm struck on Monday, with the number rising to
8,000 yesterday and hundreds more expected to be called to active duty,
National Guard officials said yesterday.
"Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event. We need
our people," said Lt. Andy Thaggard, a spokesman for the Mississippi National
Guard, which has a brigade of more than 4,000 troops in central Iraq. Louisiana
also has about 3,000 Guard troops in Baghdad.
Mississippi has about 40 percent of its Guard force deployed or preparing to
deploy and has called up all remaining Guard units for hurricane relief,
Thaggard said. Those include the Army band based in Jackson, Miss. "They are
mustering transportation to move them south," he said. Soldiers who have lost
their homes are exempt, he said.
Mississippi has requested troops and aircraft from about eight other states
-- including military police and engineers from Alabama, helicopters and crews
from Arkansas and Georgia, and aircraft-maintenance experts from Connecticut,
who are filling in for a Mississippi maintenance unit that is heading to the
Middle East.
"This is the biggest disaster we've ever had, so we're going to need more
aircraft than we've got," said Col. Bradly S. MacNealy, the Mississippi Army
National Guard's aviation officer. Mississippi has had to borrow from Arkansas
UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters fitted with hoists, using them together with the
Coast Guard to pluck to safety several dozen people stranded by floodwaters, he
said.
Chinook helicopters from Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi are flying the
equivalent of 18 large truckloads of critical supplies -- including ice, water,
food and chain saws for road-clearing crews -- to Mississippi's coast, he
said.
In Alabama, all the major Guard units activated for the disaster have
already served in Iraq, and some still have contingents there, said Alabama
Guard spokesman Norman Arnold.
Capt. Richard Locke of the Guard's 1st Battalion 167th Infantry headed
toward Mobile yesterday with a force of 400 soldiers cobbled together from four
units because the rest of the battalion is in Iraq.
Carrying M-16 rifles and 9mm pistols, the soldiers are assigned to control
traffic at unlighted intersections, and patrol in Humvees and on foot to
prevent looting.
Recruiting and retention problems are worsening the strain on Guard forces
in hurricane-ravaged states. Alabama's Army National Guard has a strength of
11,000 troops -- or 78 percent of the authorized number. "We're just losing too
many out the back door," Arnold said.
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