[Poohbah]

I'm not going to hold my breath re:post#3, I'm very much afraid this is window-dressing. If they were serious, all UAV flights, training and otherwise, would be carried out in support of the Border Patrol starting yesterday.

And forget things like:

1. Posse Comitatus Act

2. Congress has not appropriated money for this mission, so the executive can't spend it for this mission

3. A majority of the UAV flights are RDT&E efforts with specific objectives that cannot be recast to support the Border Patrol

4. Tom Ridge is the Secretary of Homeland Security, not the Secretary of Defense

And the beat goes on...

Our system of government is not designed to turn on a dime, or the whim of a cabinet secretary. Our problem with the judiciary, for example, comes down to the fact that they are turning our system of government on a dime.

[HiJinx]

3. A majority of the UAV flights are RDT&E efforts with specific objectives that cannot be recast to support the Border Patrol

All very good points, Poohbah, except that one. Almost every UAV flight here at Ft. Huachuca is a training mission. This is where we train Army UAV pilots. It wouldn't take a Secretarial or DoD decision to train along the border.

It would, however, take a high level decision to convert the missions to BP support. Part of my concern in my previous post is that all of these decisions were begging to be made at least 5 years ago and the Army support to BP could have been in place for at least 2 years if not longer.

In fact, to avoid the Waco debacle (military equipment and personnel in support of civilian law enforcement), 5 years is more than enough time for DoJ to purchase the hardware and train the operators so that the DoD is left out of the equation.