First Draft

The GAO released a report titled “Actions Needed to Identify National
Guard Domestic Equipment Requirements and Readiness” in which we learn
that planning to use the National Guard domestically in large-scale terrorist events
and natural disasters is lacking as well as the National Guard’s
equipment readiness for such domestic events.

Here is what the GAO said regarding planning…

 The Homeland Security Council has developed 15 catastrophic

 scenarios to guide federal and state governments in planning their

 response activities.While DOD is responsible for equipping the Guard

 for its federal missions and states plan for the National Guard’€™s

 activities within their borders, neither is comprehensively planning

 for the Guard’€’s role in responding to events like the national

 planning scenarios that may involve more than one state and be

 federally funded.Such planning has not been completed primarily

 because there is no formal mechanism for facilitating planning for

 the Guard’€™s role in large-scale events.

That’s reassuring.

The GAO recommended that the the National Guard Bureau’€™s charter and its
civil support regulations be revised to define its role in facilitating
state planning for multistate events.

However the DoD did not concur
claiming the function already exists in the Charter and that it is
inappropriate for the Chief of the NG Bureau to “coordinate directly
with other Federal agencies” as that is the responsibility of the
Secretary of Defense and Combatant Commanders.

So much for planning.

And related to that is the readiness issue given
if you don’t know what you need well you go to the disaster with what ya
got.

As regards the NG’s readiness the GAO reported…

 DOD does not routinely measure or report to Congress the equipment

 readiness of nondeployed National Guard forces for domestic

 missions.DOD’€™s legacy readiness reporting system and its annual

 National Guard equipping report to Congress address warfighting

 readiness but do not address the Guard’€™s domestic missions.

On average, states and territories had about 50 percent of their
authorized inventoryof dual-use equipment available for domestic
missions. (dual use=authorized for warfighting missions but could be
highly useful in responding to domestic events). The map below shows the
percentage for each state and territory. Note that Washington D.C. is
one of the lowest at 35.6%

(for larger image go to page 31 of Pdf linked above)

The GAO recommended…