Large-Scale Role for U.S. Military in Disasters Described As 'Inevitable'
2005-10-15
Buffalo News
By Ann Scott Tyson
The U.S. military is planning a more rapid, robust role for active-duty forces in responding to catastrophic disasters or terrorist attacks, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday, describing the demand for large-scale military resources in such cases as "inevitable."
Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, stressed that the expanded active-duty military response would be limited to rare, mass calamities or attacks in which thousands of lives were at risk -- such as a category 4 hurricane, or a terrorist strike involving chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Federal troops also might play a role in enforcing a quarantine in the case of a pandemic outbreak of avian flu or other disease, McHale said, although initially that job would fall to National Guard forces under the command of a state governor.
"We are looking at a wide range of contingencies potentially involving Title 10 forces
if a pandemic outbreak of a biological threat were to occur," said McHale, who planned further review of avian flu quarantine measures.
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