USA — Plan Bridges Gaps in Homeland Responses

WASHINGTON, March 8, 2011 — Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates has agreed to a plan that will allow for one com­man­der to be in charge of both Nation­al Guard and reserve forces when they are called up to respond to domes­tic emer­gen­cies.
Gates, along with Home­land Secu­ri­ty Sec­re­tary Janet Napoli­tano and the Coun­cil of Gov­er­nors — a group Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma formed in Jan­u­ary 2010 to rep­re­sent all of the states’ gov­er­nors — signed off on the agree­ment, known as the Joint Action Plan, dur­ing a March 1 Pen­ta­gon meet­ing, Defense Depart­ment offi­cials said.

Paul N. Stock­ton, assis­tant sec­re­tary of defense for home­land secu­ri­ty, today called the agree­ment “a break­through” in the military’s abil­i­ty to effec­tive­ly respond to domes­tic emer­gen­cies, whether nat­ur­al or manmade. 

“This will be much more effi­cient, much more effec­tive, and it will be a part­ner­ship that nev­er exist­ed before,” Stock­ton told Amer­i­can Forces Press Service. 

The plan cre­ates a dual-sta­tus com­man­der for each state, approved by the pres­i­dent and gov­er­nor, to have simul­ta­ne­ous author­i­ty over both Nation­al Guard and reserve forces called up to respond to a state emer­gency, Stock­ton said. 

Under the Con­sti­tu­tion, Guard forces must be under state con­trol for domes­tic events, and reservists and any active-duty forces must remain in fed­er­al con­trol. The dual-sta­tus com­man­ders can oper­ate in both the state and fed­er­al chains of com­mand with­out legal changes, Stock­ton said. In fact, he added, dual-sta­tus com­man­ders have been used before for domes­tic events that are planned months in advance, such as polit­i­cal par­ty conventions. 

State and fed­er­al offi­cials real­ized through the response to Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na, which killed thou­sands of peo­ple and destroyed much of the Louisiana and Mis­sis­sip­pi coasts in August 2005, as well as in oth­er nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, that bet­ter coor­di­na­tion is need­ed in emer­gen­cies, he said. 

“Dur­ing Kat­ri­na, lead­er­ship did­n’t have an under­stand­ing of what was hap­pen­ing on the ground,” Stock­ton said. “We need a bet­ter com­mon oper­at­ing pic­ture of where the units are, their lev­el of readi­ness, their response capabilities.” 

Com­man­ders also need to know the local area, he said, such as road­way and build­ing capacities.

“This is a whole new way to bring life-sav­ing capa­bil­i­ties to bear,” Stock­ton said. “Those first 72 hours are pre­cious for sav­ing lives.” 

The Joint Action Plan will pro­vide uni­for­mi­ty to plans that vary great­ly from state to state, he said, and all dual-sta­tus com­man­ders are expect­ed to be appoint­ed and trained by ear­ly fall. More than 30 dual-sta­tus com­man­ders already have been cho­sen in key loca­tions, he said. 

“That com­man­der is the nexus, the coor­di­nat­ing per­son to ensure that forces work in col­lab­o­ra­tion,” he said. 

A sec­ond aspect of the agree­ment calls for a leg­isla­tive change to give the pres­i­dent the author­i­ty to call up reservists for domes­tic emer­gen­cies – a change Stock­ton said is need­ed to stream­line the process. Cur­rent­ly, if fed­er­al forces are need­ed to aug­ment the Guard, a gov­er­nor must make the request to the Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency, part of the Home­land Secu­ri­ty Depart­ment, then FEMA must seek the assis­tance through U.S. North­ern Com­mand, which over­sees North Amer­i­ca and will over­see dual-sta­tus com­man­der train­ing, Stock­ton said. 

Most dual-sta­tus com­man­ders like­ly will be Nation­al Guard offi­cers with a dis­tin­guished record of com­mand expe­ri­ence, he said. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →