Global Security Newswire

Congressional auditors said in a report on Wednesday that National Guard units established to support the response to a WMD incident are faced with a number of significant staffing and readiness issues (see GSN, July 13, 2010).

The "personnel, training and equipment challenges" experienced by the CBRNE Enhanced Response Force Packages "have adversely affected their preparedness to effectively execute" operations in the wake of a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-explosive event, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The 17 units are staffed largely by part-time National Guard members. Their duties following a WMD strike would include search and rescue, medical treatment, decontamination and recovery of bodies.

However, it has proved difficult to keep the units staffed with sufficient counts of personnel "with the proficiency needed to execute many specialized tasks they are to perform," and "additional equipment may be needed to perform the mission," a summary of the GAO report cites National Guard and CERFP officials as saying.

"These challenges highlight that [the National Guard] has not established a process to comprehensively review and validate personnel, training, and equipment requirements," the report adds.

Efforts to coordinate with other response agencies, including those at the state and local level, through briefings and other measures have been hampered by "insufficient guidance on how to conduct interagency coordination," auditors wrote. "Existing coordination guidance is imprecise on the frequency and targeting of coordination activities, thereby providing little direction for prioritizing responsibilities."

There are also a limited number of agreements between states that house the National Guard units and those that do not that could help organize the provision of support across state borders, the report adds.

The document identifies problems with the command and control system intended to lay out how the National Guard units would "integrate" with separate military and civilian command entities. Among the issues are the need for better communications technology, additional chances to train on command and control in a "realistic response environment," and an increased number of agreements between the units and entities in other states.

"GAO recommends that [the Defense Department] take a number of actions to increase CERFP preparedness, strengthen pre-incident coordination with potential response partners, and ensure the effective command and control of operations involving CERFP," the report says. "DOD agreed with the recommendations" (U.S. Government Accountability Office release, Dec. 7).