General: Homeland response task force to be ready by fall

[WhiteFeather]

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?s...9&archive=true
General: Homeland response task force to be ready by fall

By Scott Schonauer, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, April 27, 2008



RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — The Pentagon will have its first specially trained task force designed to rapidly respond to a catastrophic attack against the United States ready by this fall, a top military commander said last week.

Gen. Victor “Gene” Renuart, chief of the U.S. Northern Command, said the brigade-sized unit will consist of military personnel who are trained to help local authorities respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear incident. The unit will have between 4,000 and 4,500 people and come from various bases and specialties across the country. When disaster strikes, those dedicated to the task force will come together to form the unit.

“Today we pull that together very quickly to respond,” Renuart said Thursday. “This unit will be trained to react in a very short period of time.”

Renuart, the top commander in charge of defending the homeland, is traveling through Europe this month to exchange information with NATO leaders on how military forces can fight homeland terrorism and respond to national disasters.

U.S. Northern Command, called NORTHCOM for short, was created in 2002 to oversee the Pentagon’s homeland defense efforts and support civil authorities. The creation of the rapid-response team comes after congressional leaders questioned heavily the military’s ability to react to a major attack against the United States.

The new NORTHCOM unit will include people with medical, logistics and airlift backgrounds. It also will have small decontamination teams to help local first responders on the scene of an attack.

The task force will not be stationed at one base but come from units across the country, Renuart said. But a key piece of the initiative is that those chosen for the unit will train together and know each other, “so they’re not exchanging business cards at a disaster,” Renuart said.

Along with having a unit to respond to a catastrophic attack or disaster, Renuart said he would like to see the command expand its use of unmanned aerial vehicles over the continental United States. He called the remotely controlled aircraft a “critical enabler” that has proved its worth by helping firefighters battle wildfires and border patrol agents protect the northern and southern borders. The Air Force used the Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft during the southern California wildfires last fall.

“That’s, I think, a growth area for us. It provides us with some really unique capability, and we’ll continue to work with partners to develop it,” he said.

During his meetings with NATO leaders this month, Renuart said he plans to share lessons learned from the U.S. military’s response to Hurricane Katrina and its efforts to prevent a terrorist attack on American soil.

“Each country approaches the terrorist threat in a different fashion,” said Renuart, a former 52nd Fighter Wing commander at Spangdahlem Air Base.

“Each country places a different emphasis on use of [the] military to respond when disaster strikes. So for us, it is learning how they view and how they approach it … but also sharing the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve created a much more improved, integrated process to plan for and then execute in the response to whatever the event may be — all hazards, threats.”

[reels18]

I wonder how many military police are in that unit?

If they are to react to a catastrophic attack or a disaster, they would naturally take the place of the local police units that are either disabled or taking care of their families.

During one of these two scenarios, a strong police presence would head off many problems before they happen.

[sluggie24]

It sounds to me that they are getting ready for possible civil unrest that they will be labeling "terrorist activity". If they were truely worried about terrorism this would have been assembled years ago.

[WhiteFeather]

update:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/0...eland_090708w/

Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1

3rd Infantry’s 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army

By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Sep 8, 2008 6:15:06 EDT

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.

“Right now, the response force requirement will be an enduring mission. How the [Defense Department] chooses to source that and whether or not they continue to assign them to NorthCom, that could change in the future,” said Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom future operations. “Now, the plan is to assign a force every year.”

The command is at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., but the soldiers with 1st BCT, who returned in April after 15 months in Iraq, will operate out of their home post at Fort Stewart, Ga., where they’ll be able to go to school, spend time with their families and train for their new homeland mission as well as the counterinsurgency mission in the war zones.

Stop-loss will not be in effect, so soldiers will be able to leave the Army or move to new assignments during the mission, and the operational tempo will be variable.

Don’t look for any extra time off, though. The at-home mission does not take the place of scheduled combat-zone deployments and will take place during the so-called dwell time a unit gets to reset and regenerate after a deployment.

The 1st of the 3rd is still scheduled to deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan in early 2010, which means the soldiers will have been home a minimum of 20 months by the time they ship out.

In the meantime, they’ll learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it.

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

Training for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the “jaws of life” to extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for a CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on how to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or area.

The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.”

The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.

“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.

“I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds ... it put me on my knees in seconds.”

The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced “sea-smurf”).

“I can’t think of a more noble mission than this,” said Cloutier, who took command in July. “We’ve been all over the world during this time of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home ... and depending on where an event occurred, you’re going home to take care of your home town, your loved ones.”

While soldiers’ combat training is applicable, he said, some nuances don’t apply.

“If we go in, we’re going in to help American citizens on American soil, to save lives, provide critical life support, help clear debris, restore normalcy and support whatever local agencies need us to do, so it’s kind of a different role,” said Cloutier, who, as the division operations officer on the last rotation, learned of the homeland mission a few months ago while they were still in Iraq.

Some brigade elements will be on call around the clock, during which time they’ll do their regular marksmanship, gunnery and other deployment training. That’s because the unit will continue to train and reset for the next deployment, even as it serves in its CCMRF mission.

Should personnel be needed at an earthquake in California, for example, all or part of the brigade could be scrambled there, depending on the extent of the need and the specialties involved.

Other branches included
The active Army’s new dwell-time mission is part of a NorthCom and DOD response package.

Active-duty soldiers will be part of a force that includes elements from other military branches and dedicated National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Teams.

A final mission rehearsal exercise is scheduled for mid-September at Fort Stewart and will be run by Joint Task Force Civil Support, a unit based out of Fort Monroe, Va., that will coordinate and evaluate the interservice event.

In addition to 1st BCT, other Army units will take part in the two-week training exercise, including elements of the 1st Medical Brigade out of Fort Hood, Texas, and the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade from Fort Bragg, N.C.

There also will be Air Force engineer and medical units, the Marine Corps Chemical, Biological Initial Reaction Force, a Navy weather team and members of the Defense Logistics Agency and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

One of the things Vogler said they’ll be looking at is communications capabilities between the services.

“It is a concern, and we’re trying to check that and one of the ways we do that is by having these sorts of exercises. Leading up to this, we are going to rehearse and set up some of the communications systems to make sure we have interoperability,” he said.

“I don’t know what America’s overall plan is — I just know that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that are standing by to come and help if they’re called,” Cloutier said. “It makes me feel good as an American to know that my country has dedicated a force to come in and help the people at home.”

They should have added to be used in case of a banking system failure or economic collapse.

[sluggie24]

Oh crap...........here it comes...........

[dc dalton]

It sounds to me that they are getting ready for possible civil unrest that they will be labeling "terrorist activity". If they were truely worried about terrorism this would have been assembled years ago.

You got that right, I'm thinking they are more worried about us then they are 'them'

Then again there is that tin foil hat rumor going around that Bush will suspend the elections and declare martial law because of an economic collapse ... makes one think doesn't it? hmmmmmmmmmmm

[er2006]

I incorrectly assumed that the National Guard was supposed to respond to domestic troubles.


To help maintain or restore order in case of major catastrophes, They would of course be under the control of the Govenor.

Ed

[sluggie24]

I incorrectly assumed that the National Guard was supposed to respond to domestic troubles.


To help maintain or restore order in case of major catastrophes, They would of course be under the control of the Govenor.

Ed

Bush wiped that one out with the stroke of a pen. He can now use federal troops for whatever purpose including against US citizens for whatever reason he wishes. They will answer to him, not the govenors, not Congress.........kinda scary huh?

[sluggie24]

You got that right, I'm thinking they are more worried about us then they are 'them'

Then again there is that tin foil hat rumor going around that Bush will suspend the elections and declare martial law because of an economic collapse ... makes one think doesn't it? hmmmmmmmmmmm

As silly as I always found that theory I keep hitting one stumbling block. He can if he wants. He has everything in place to do what he wants when he wants. That is too much power for any one man elected or not.

[Pector55]

As silly as I always found that theory I keep hitting one stumbling block. He can if he wants. He has everything in place to do what he wants when he wants. That is too much power for any one man elected or not.

National Guard under Rendell or Bush? Sorry, I'll give that power to Bush any day. I'll ignore it... but I won't give it to Rendell under any circumstances.

I see a more legit concern over race-based riots than anything financial.