Posted on 09/04/2005 12:45:08 AM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
The National Guard was slow to move troops into New Orleans because it did not anticipate the collapse of the city's police force after Hurricane Katrina, the guard's commander said.
Lieutenant General Steven Blum said the New Orleans police force was left with only a third of its pre-storm 1,500-person strength.
Some police had families caught up in the disaster, others were unable to make it back to their precincts because of the flooding, and yet others left their posts after deciding the situation had grown too dangerous.
"The real issue, particularly in New Orleans, is that no one anticipated the disintegration or the erosion of the civilian police force in New Orleans," Blum told reporters here.
"Once that assessment was made ... then the requirement became obvious," he said. "And that's when we started flowing military police into the theater."
On Friday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin angrily denounced the slow federal response as too little, too late, charging that promised troops had not arrived in time.
"Now get off your asses and let's do something and fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country," the mayor said in remarks aired on CNN.
Blum said that since Thursday some 7,000 National Guard and military police had moved into the city.
But he said any suggestion that the National Guard had not performed well or was late was a "low blow."
The initial priority of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard forces was disaster relief, not law enforcement, because they expected the police to handle that, he said.
"We were pulsing forces in in very degraded infrastructure -- airports had reduced capabilities ... in some cases we only had one road in because of lack of bridges, flooding, loss of infrastructure," he said.
"So we couldn't rush to failure on this thing and we had to take a more measured approach on this thing than any of us wanted," he said.
When it became apparent that disorder in New Orleans should be the most immediate priority, the National Guard waited until they had enough forces in hand to make an overwhelming show of force, he said.
On Friday, while President George W. Bush was touring the stricken city, 1,000 military police and National Guard stormed the convention center where street gangs mixed in with thousands of others awaiting rescue had created a volatile situation, Blum said.
"Had we gone in with a lesser force we may have been challenged, innocents may have been caught in a fight between the guard and military police and those who did not want to be processed or apprehended," he said.
Bush, under intense criticism for the slow federal response, on Saturday ordered an additional 7,000 active duty and reserve ground troops to reinforce the National Guard.
That would raise the level of US military forces committed to the relief effort -- active duty as well as national guard and reserves -- to more than 50,000 by the end of next week.
Blum said that on Saturday there were 27,000 national guard troops in Louisiana and Mississippi. That number will grow to about 40,000 within the next week, he said.
There were varying estimates of the number of active duty troops already in the area as part of the relief of operations before Bush's order.
Major General Joseph Inge, deputy commander of the US Northern Command, put the number of active duty forces already on the ground at nearly 5,000 while Blum estimated the active force at 7,000, including sailors aboard navy ships.
The additional troops ordered in from the active force include 2,500 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, 2,700 from the 1st Cavalry Division and 2,000 from the 1st and 2nd Marine Expeditionary Forces.
Pearls meet swine.
No kidding?
Seattle Times Stumping for Votes in Gov.'s Race (for the Democrat of course)
Seattle Times ^ | 12/15/2004 | calreaganfan
Posted on 12/15/2004 3:26:28 PM EST by calreaganfan
Today, the Seattle Times has gone to the extraordinary length of publishing a list of the names and addresses of 1,555 voters (only in King County of course) whose absentee ballots were rejected due to signature problems. The newspaper is making an all-out effort to scrounge up every last vote for the Democrat candidate for governor.
"I'm right here
watching"
Now you really have to admit that does sound just a wee bit "Stalinist".
I'm still waiting to know what my "personal attacks" were. I came up with "Stalinist", but that's only one personal attack and the other moderator distinctly said "attacks" so I'm really at a loss here. Would you please help me out so I don't break the rules again.
It must be late...that is all I can figure.
Would you like me to be a little more Stalinist?
Posted on 12/10/2004 8:24:36 PM EST by calreaganfan
The conventional wisdom of the political punditry has been proven wrong again. A huge national voter turnout was thought to favor the Democrat candidate, but Pres. Bush's national popular vote count from the Nov. 2, 2004 general election has now exceeded 62 million votes. As of 12/10/04, Pres. Bush has received 62,019,003 votes. The states of NY and PA have certified their official results in the past two days which pushed Pres. Bush's vote count over the 62 million mark. CA will certify its results tomorrow, but almost all CA votes are already included in the Bush total (by obtaining vote counts from CA county websites). Only MN, ME and a few other states have yet to certify their official results.
"Uh...that would be in case something breaks FCC obscenity rules which is an entity of the government which has the force of law behind it."
Actually no, you're wrong. Just last night, the NBC censor bleeped out some comments made by a rapper who did not use any obscenity. The TV networks have their own rules on appropriate speech/behaviour.
December posts ? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.........
Just go to your room.
And in EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE you posted, you used the ( ) to add YOUR comments, while sticking with the original title.
Busted.
50 000 troops now in NO!
It's virtualy war / civil-war
I would not accept Castro's poisoned gift of 1100 doctors
And Bush and our nation seem to be completely clueless at the level of corruption, terrorism and terror support going on in liberal elite and government circles.
This is the kind of premature wake up call the Ruskies don't want us to go through. Tie in Castro's offers and you get the picture that maybe they are preparing a first strike on US soil as we "speak"!!! Terror nuke strike, ground prep for full blown WWIII or WWIII itself.
Thanks for proving my point. My thread titles did not match the titles of news links, etc., and yet the threads were not pulled. I guess FR now has more "Stalinist" moderators.
Well, my nephew didn't take off, he's been there since the beginning and still is. When I get the chance I will ask him, so far it is difficult for him to get information out, only two times this week, once early Friday morning and once yesterday.
Also, two threads is not "many", as was claimed; are they? LOL
You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. NONE of my titles matched any news article or link. I always devised my own wording, yet never once were any of my threads pulled.
How can you possibly be wrong so many times on one thread?
My posts PROVE that you ALWAYS added your own editorial comments in parenthases, even though you claimed IGNORNACE of them.
The links in those posts wouldn't work now anyway.......duh.
"Also, two threads is not "many", as was claimed; are they? LOL"
I posted way more than two threads so have a good laugh at yourself. I also originated ALL the titles of the many, many threads. LOL!!
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