The unseemly blame-game between Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius and President George W. Bush about the National Guard’s response to last Friday’s tornado in Greensburg, Kan., shouldn’t be allowed to obscure an emerging truth: In many states, the Guard is so stressed by its deep involvement in Iraq that it is poorly equipped to meet its domestic responsibilities. The Guard’s military role also is suffering from the long and repeated deployments of citizen soldiers that are crippling its re-enlistment efforts and its ability to recruit fresh faces.
Each state maintains its own National Guard, though the units can be called up for federal service. Sibelius said Monday that the deployment of many state Guard units to Iraq had hampered its response to the tornado. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow fired back in full “blame-the-victim” mode Tuesday, chiding Sebelius for not following proper procedures by first identifying needed heavy equipment and then asking the federal government to provide it.
Late Tuesday, both sides backed down a bit. Snow admitted Sibelius had asked for more aid than she had received and Sibelius said she hadn’t meant to imply Kansas was ill-equipped to deal with the Greensburg tornado, but was warning about its inability to handle additional disasters in the future, such as another tornado or severe flooding.
Actually, Sibelius’ comments were milder than those of National Guard chief Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, testifying before Congress last month.
“Most of the units in the Army and Air National Guard are under-equipped for the jobs and the missions that they have to perform,” Blum said. “Can we do the job? Yes, we can. But the lack of equipment means it takes longer to do that job, and lost time translates into lost lives, and those lost lives are American lives.”
Originally seen as a reserve force to be called up only in an all-out war, National Guard units were given 16- to 24-month stints when the Iraq war began. Three to four months of that time was spent on training before being sent overseas. In January, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced plans to limit future call-ups of Guard members to one year, with just two months of intensive training. While that eases the disruption of Guard members’ civilian lives, the shortened training might also lead to higher casualties among the citizen soldiers.
The damage the Iraq war is doing to America’s versatile and vital National Guard is among the most compelling reasons to press for an early and honorable end to the U.S. deployment.
