Lack of Equipment Slowed the Guard, Report Contends, NY Times 10-21

[Coastie for Truth]

Army National Guard units have run into problems responding to domestic disasters like Hurricane Katrina because much of their equipment is in Iraq, according to a report released Thursday by the Government Accountability Office and Guard officials.

Guard units in the United States have, on average, only 34 percent of their authorized equipment and are especially short of trucks, helicopters, night-vision goggles, radios and other communications equipment, said the report, which was released at a hearing of the House Committee on Government Reform.

In addition to 64,000 pieces of equipment left in Iraq for other units when Guard units rotated back the United States, 101,000 pieces have been transferred to deploying units to ensure they are fully equipped for combat, the report said.

Guard officials believe the response to Hurricane Katrina "was more complicated because significant quantities of critical equipment such as satellite communications equipment, radios, trucks, helicopters and night-vision goggles were deployed to Iraq," the report said.


---Edited for Brevity---

[NNadir]

1. Let's hope this report wasn't filed by Judith Miller.

Were it so, we would be getting a glossy picture of an even worse reality.

[Coastie for Truth]

3. It's a valid picture

<--- Note the "new avatar" - it's the new official International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent "Red Crystal" -- non-demoniational, non-sectarian -- represents no nation, nationality, or religion. No cross, no crescent, no star of David. (Does NOT supplant existing emblems --- supplements them)


Our and train across the street from the local National Guard Armory -- and it's bleak.

And we are in "Earthquake" and "Spring Flood" country --- very much so--
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[FloridaPat]

2. To say nothing of the 70% of the active guard that wasn't around.