They haven't been the "lead dog." CDC and USAID have assumed that role overseas. The CDC has as its main mission the control and prevention of disease on a global basis. So what is different this time? I believe it is the political agenda of the Obama administration.
You keep confusing describing the Army’s biological research and medical capabilities, and them already being in Africa, with this decision to send in 3.000 line troops.?
They are not just "line troops." And according to the WP, Despite President Obama’s call for increased involvement of the U.S. military in the fight against the rapidly escalating Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the United States is hamstrung by a lack of military medical personnel with expertise dealing with the deadly virus, a top official in charge of coordinating the U.S. response said Tuesday.
There isn’t an existing cadre of people who have experience in treating this epidemic other than” the aid group Doctors Without Borders, said Nancy Lindborg of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The Pentagon announced Monday that it would set up a 25-bed field hospital in Liberia to help provide medical care for health workers responding to the epidemic, prompting criticism from international aid groups and global health advocates who said the action was paltry compared with the need in the hardest-hit countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Lindborg said Tuesday that the hospital is intended to provide health care for foreign workers, not Liberians. The goal of the hospital is to “provide assurance that there will be quality health care available for health workers” who have or might volunteer to go to any of the affected countries, she said.
The World Health Organization has said the outbreak is “increasing exponentially” in Liberia. In Montserrado County alone — where the capital, Monrovia, is located — there is a need for 1,000 treatment beds; only 240 exist.
The Defense Department has provided some equipment, supplies and staff in the region since the outbreak began months ago. But the expectation was that Obama’s remarks on Sunday would produce more substantive action and that the U.S. military, with its enormous logistical capacity, extensive air operations and highly trained medical corps, could address gaps in the response quickly.
But the United States does not have a workforce trained in the special protocols for Ebola, Lindborg said. WHO is currently training 500 new workers in Liberia, and the U.S. government is supporting that effort, she said.
“I would like to know, do they think the response to date by the U.S. government will make any difference in the course of events in the current epidemic?” said Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders, which has been the aid group working most actively since the outbreak began months ago.
During the same news briefing Tuesday, a top Pentagon official declined to provide specifics about other military assets that could be deployed.
“We’re continuing to evaluate where to best support the overall effort,” said Michael Lumpkin, assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity conflicts.
I am not confusing anything. Making the military the lead dog in this effort makes no sense. They don't currently have the medical people trained to fight Ebola. The question that needs to be asked is why isn't CDC leading this effort rather than the military? And it appears the military is still unclear about its role.
I haven’t been able to find the source that says the CDC has replaced the Army as our most powerful force for outbreaks of this type globally.
I also didn’t see your source telling us that these 3,000 troops are not mostly regular GIs.
Perhaps if you would do less posting of meaningless irrelevant cut and pastes, you could focus better.
Also, to get back to the point.
What is with you and the Army, why do you keep wanting to pretend that working these Ebola breakouts is routine for them and that they do very much of the same work as the CDC in regards to this field, and in some areas, more than the CDC.
“USAMRIID is the only U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) laboratory equipped to study highly hazardous viruses at Biosafety Level 4 within positive pressure personnel suits.
USAMRIID employs both military and civilian scientists as well as highly specialized support personnel, in all about 800 people. In the 1950s and ‘60s, USAMRIID and its predecessor unit pioneered unique, state-of-the-art biocontainment facilities which it continues to maintain and upgrade. Investigators at its facilities frequently collaborate with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and major biomedical and academic centers worldwide.
USAMRIID was the first bio-facility of its type to research the Ames strain of anthrax, determined through genetic analysis to be the bacterium used in the 2001 anthrax attacks.”
Why are you trying to pretend that what the Army normally does, and has always done in fighting Ebola in Africa, doesn’t exist?
Details of the mission: http://m.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/16/fact-sheet-us-response-ebola-epidemic-west-africa
Sounds like CDC is begging for help, which means the situation is dire.
The following is from that article:
But the Defense source said that military leaders were “cornered” by the White House with the response mission, and that USAID and CDC are “begging” for military help when they should be the “lead.” The source said the government is turning to DOD because the NGOs that agencies typically work with on the ground have fled.