Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius criticized the White House saying
half its equipment was being used in the Bush administration's war in
Iraq which White House press secretary Tony Snow rejected as nonsense.

Appearing on NBC's Today Show Monday morning, Gov. Sebelius said,
"Half the equipment is gone and we can't borrow from other states
because their equipment is gone too."

Sebelius said it was going to take up to five years to rebuild the
state's National Guard equipment levels and that Kansas could not wait
five years.

Gov. Sebelius said she plans on discussing the equipment shortage with
President Bush when he visits tornado-stricken Greensburg, KS
Wednesday.

...................................................................................................

Testifying before Congress last month, Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum urged
the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee to support the fiscal
2008 National Guard budget requests, saying severe equipment
shortfalls are keeping it from being fully ready.

Guard forces deployed overseas are "superbly equipped and superbly
trained, ... and we want for nothing," Lt. Gen. Blum told the
subcommittee.

But he said the situation at home isn't nearly as rosy.

"It's a much different story, and it's not a good story," he said.

"The National Guard today, I am sad to say, is not a fully ready
force," the general said.

"Unresourced shortfalls still exist that approach $40 billion to
provide the equipment and the training that I personally feel your
Army and Air National Guard are expected to have to be able to respond
to the citizens of the United States."

General Blum warned lawmakers that should a disaster, like the recent
flooding, occur, the National Guard would be severely hampered, not
because of lack of troops, but because "there just isn't any
equipment."

"This nation cannot afford the consequences of an unready National
Guard, Gen. Blum said.


http://www.axcessnews.com/index.php/articles/show/id/10942

Wednesday, 9 May 2007

National Guard unable to handle disasters, Governors argue

By Freddie Mooche

(AXcess News) Washington -

Heavy flooding was reported across a five-state region following three
days of storms and with it a flood of outcries aimed toward the Bush
administration due to the lack of National Guard equipment and
personnel needed to help.

A devastating tornado was credited with destroying the town of
Greensburg, Kansas with the twister measuring more than a half mile
across and everything in its path for 26 miles leveled.

But Kansas says it is facing a 50% shortage of National Guard
equipment with it and Kansas National Guardsmen deployed in Iraq.

The Greensburg tornado was part of a storm front that blanketed the
Plains states as far north as South Dakota.

A check of river gauges this morning show 11 at major flood stage and
43 more at moderate flood stage, with most of those readings coming
from the central Plains and no way to combat the expected flooding
adequately due to lack of equipment and Guardsmen.

The National Weather Service predicted Monday that flooding from the
three-day storm could reach proportions nearly as devastating as in
1993 when entire towns were wiped off the map.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency and ordered the
mobilization of Missouri National Guard troops, though Gov. Blunt
complained that much of the State's Guard equipment and personnel were
in Iraq and his comments brought out a flood of its own aimed towards
the White House.

The same complex of storms that churned up the deadly enhanced F-5
twister in the southwest Kansas town of Greensburg generated the heavy
rain that is causing the flooding, said Andy Bailey, a meteorologist
with the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill.

Northwest and southeast Missouri, southwest Iowa and much of Kansas
received from 4 to 7 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, he said.

________________________________________________________

Another Bush mission accomplished.

Harry