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U.S. Response: Army Wants Greater Domestic Role, General Says By Greg Seigle Speaking at a bioterrorism conference of military, state and local officials from across the nation, Maj. Gen. John Doesburg said the United States might soon be able to adequately respond to attacks involving weapons of mass destruction “within a day” if it uses all its resources. “We’ve got it down to about three days, four days tops,” Doesburg said, referring to realistic response drills his command has been running at various Army posts since Sept. 11. “Imagine what we could do if we used all our national resources.” The key to a WMD response, Doesburg said, is having military, state and local officials already used to working together. Such preparations would be best achieved if active military units with nuclear, biological and chemical expertise were given a greater role in helping prepare state and local officials for such an attack, he said. “Who’s going to execute this?” Doesburg asked. “I’d like to say we are, but I only own a small piece of the pie.” Currently the Pentagon has assigned 24 National Guard “rapid response” teams to assist first responders, with eight more being trained or organized (see GSN, Feb. 8). Each team consists of 22 full-time soldiers trained to identify and protect against nuclear, biological or chemical weapons and to assess the needs of first responders — firefighters, doctors and other emergency personnel. Pooling Resources The National Guard teams are needed, but they would not be enough in the event of a major WMD attack, Doesburg said. Rather, they should merely be a part of a large-scale military rescue response, he said. “We need to pool the resources of the Defense Department and, yes, first responders,” Doesburg said. All four of the armed services have chemical and biological protection units, with the Army and Marine Corps possessing the most assets. These small units, which would need to be dramatically beefed up to assume a civil defense mission, would be ideal to lead a federal response after any WMD attacks, Doesburg said. The active duty military units could use their command and control structure to coordinate any emergency responses by federal, state and local authorities, he said. “They would be able to respond and get the right assets to the scene … quickly and rapidly identifying agents,” he said. “We need to figure out how to best deploy the talents and skills of the [military chemical and biological] commands,” Doesburg said. “It’s a tough mission and I don’t have a lot of answers.” Since Sept. 11 the Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command has formulated and practiced a plan to respond to any weapons of mass destruction incidents at any Army facility, a plan that could serve as guidance for civilian emergency responses, he said. Before then there was no set plans for the Army chemical and biological units to rapidly mobilize and react to such a WMD scenario. Now the Army units have drastically reduced the amount of time they would need to respond, Doesburg said. They hope to soon have their response times down to a day, he added. “We’re going to provide a basic level of capability to every [Army] installation,” Doesburg said. WMD Does Not Discriminate Currently the Army has 67 posts in the United States and its two U.S. territories, Puerto Rico and Guam, with another 25 installations interspersed around the globe — mostly in South Korea, Japan and European countries, but also Kuwait and Afghanistan. There are dozens more National Guard and Army Reserve installations. Preparing Army posts for any WMD assaults can only be done with the help of local fire and rescue groups, he said. “If [an attack] involves terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, it doesn’t stop at a fence line. Chemical and biological weapons don’t discriminate,” Doesburg said, noting that local authorities will also be scrambling to protect their own populace. “We can win the war on terrorism,” he added. “Before long we could have it so my parents in Iowa don’t have to worry anymore about chemical or biological weapons … we have all the resources both inside and outside the government.”
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