- Presenter: Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief, National Guard
Bureau
- Saturday, September 3, 2005
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Defense Department Briefing on Ongoing National Guard
Response to Hurricane Katrina
-
- GEN. BLUM: Good morning gentlemen. I just got back
late last evening from New Orleans and the stricken areas in Mississippi
along the Gulf Coast, and if you want I'll give you a quick assessment
of what we've seen--Dramatic changes in the last 36 hours. The security
situation in New Orleans continues to improve. The most contentious issues
were lawlessness in the streets, and particularly a potentially very dangerous
volatile situation in the convention center where tens of thousands of
people literally occupied that on their own. We had people that were evacuated
from hotels, and tourists that were lumped together with some street thugs
and some gang members that -- it was a potentially very dangerous situation.
-
- We waited until we had enough force in place
to do an overwhelming force. Went in with police powers, 1,000 National
Guard military policemen under the command and control of the adjutant
general of the State of Louisiana, Major General Landreneau, yesterday
shortly after noon stormed the convention center, for lack of a better
term, and there was absolutely no opposition, complete cooperation, and
we attribute that to an excellent plan, superbly executed with great military
precision. It was rather complex. It was executed absolutely flawlessly
in that there was no violent resistance, no one injured, no one shot, even
though there were stabbed, even though there were weapons in the area.
There were no soldiers injured and we did not have to fire a shot.
-
- Some people asked why didn't we go in sooner.
Had we gone in with less force it may have been challenged, innocents may
have been caught in a fight between the Guard military police and those
who did not want to be processed or apprehended, and we would put innocents'
lives at risk. As soon as we could mass the appropriate force, which we
flew in from all over the states at the rate of 1,400 a day, they were
immediately moved off the tail gates of C-130 aircraft flown by the Air
National Guard, moved right to the scene, briefed, rehearsed, and then
they went in and took this convention center down.
-
- Those that were undesirable to re-enter the
convention center were segregated from the people that we wanted to provide
water, shelter and food. Those people were processed to make sure they
had no weapons, no illicit dugs, no alcohol, no contraband, and then they
were escorted back into the building. Now there's a controlled safe and
secure environment and a shelter and a haven as they await movement out
of that center for onward integration to their normal lives.
-
- It's a great success story -- a terrific
success story.
-
- Q: Yesterday afternoon?
-
- GEN. BLUM: This was yesterday afternoon, actually during
the president's visit, while the president was watching the reconstruction
of the levies, the sling load bags of gravel and sand that were being flown
by the Texas National Guard UH-60 helicopters were ferrying in bags of
sand, about 8,000 pounds each, 7,500 pounds each, slung load under a UH-60
Black Hawk, plugging that football field sized gap in the flood wall that
has to be repaired before we can begin the job of draining the city.
-
- It's amazing to watch all of this going on
simultaneously, At the same time during the same period several hundred
rescues continued to occur, finding people and bringing them out of their
attics or bringing them out of the second story or off the roof tops, saving
lives. Some people have said the golden window is closed, we've missed
our opportunity. As long as there are people that are still stranded and
in want of evacuation, we will continue the evacuation process.
-
- We claim 2,000 evacuations by Army Guard
helicopters this week, which is significant. Each one of those represents
lives saved. That is enormous.
-
- So there are lots of good things going on.
There is plenty of work to be done. I've only just talked about New Orleans.
The same could be said all across the region. Each hour the situation improves
for those we know about. There are others, I'm sure, that think that each
hour their situation gets more grave because we haven't found them yet,
and we haven't begun to provide any lifesaving support or subsistence to
them.
-
- But I am convinced that we will continue
to do this and save lives.
-
- A great task lies ahead of us, so at the
request of the governors of Mississippi and Louisiana, 40 other Governors
have sent their National Guard soldiers and airmen to the aid through emergency
mutual assistance compacts that each governor has with every other governor
in the country. They're flowing their National Guard forces in to do security
work, support to civilian law enforcement, providing food, water, medicine,
shelter, transportation, vital communications, and all of the other emergency
support functions in support, in support of -- not as the lead agency but
in support of the lead agency -- which happens to be FEMA, the lead federal
agency.
-
- Martial law has not been declared anywhere
in the United States of America. That keeps continually being erroneously
reported. An emergency condition exists in parts of the states and there
are curfews that are being enforced by the existing civilian law enforcement
agencies. The Army National Guard, having police powers given to them or
provided to them by the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi, are augmenting,
expanding, giving manpower and extra capabilities to these existing police
forces. They're actually acting almost as a deputy would. They're deputized,
essentially, by the governors of the states to use their state militias
for this purpose.
-
- There are separate agreements, because the
EMAC compact does not allow law enforcement support within the states.
So there is a separate agreement between the governor of Mississippi and
the states that sent their military policemen down there or their National
Guard down there to do, for the purpose of military police work or law
enforcement. These are legally binding, legally sufficient agreements that
must be in place before we put National Guard military police law enforcement
officers in that role out of their home state.
-
- Q: Is that why it wasn't done earlier? They didn't have
those agreements in place?
-
- GEN. BLUM: It was not foreseen. When they put the original
EMAC together it was really for disaster response. Law enforcement was
not envisioned. So it has to be handled as a separate process. The governors
may get together and modify their EMAC in the future so that it is all-inclusive,
but this fills that gap and it makes the activity of the National Guard
in this regard totally legally sufficient and supportable.
-
- Q: Does that explain why it took several days to get
to this point?
-
- GEN. BLUM: No, there was no delay. The fortunate thing
is with modern technology they faxed the agreement back and forth, the
two governors signed it. It was a matter of moments. That was not the delay.
-
- The delay was in, if you want to call it
a delay. I really don't call it a delay, I'll be honest about that. When
we first went in there law enforcement was not the highest priority, saving
lives was. You have to remember how this thing started. Before the hurricane
hit there were 5,000 National Guardsmen in Mississippi and 5,000 National
Guardsmen -- excuse me. Let me correct the record. There were 2,500 National
Guardsmen in Mississippi and almost 4,000 National Guardsmen in Louisiana
that were sheltered and taken out of the affected area so as soon as the
storm passed they could immediately go into the area and start their search
and lifesaving work, and stand up their command and control apparatus,
and start standing up the vital functions that would be required such as
providing food, water, shelter and security for the people of the town.
So it was phased in. There was no delay.
-
- 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. Once that assessment was made, that the normal
1500 man police force in New Orleans was substantially degraded, which
contributed obviously to less police presence and less police capability,
then the requirement became obvious and that's when we started flowing
military police into the theater.
-
- Two days ago we flowed 1400 military policemen
in. Yesterday, 1400 more. Today 1400 more. Today there are 7,000 citizen
soldiers -- Army National Guard, badge-carrying military policemen and
other soldiers trained in support to civil law enforcement -- that are
on the streets, available to the mayor, provided by the governor to the
mayor to assist the New Orleans police department.
-
- I am absolutely confident that the security
situation as it has improved in the last 24 hours will improve two-fold
in the next 24 hours, and soon it won't be an issue at all.
-
- Will something ever go wrong in New Orleans?
Sure. Things went wrong in New Orleans and every other populated area around
in our country and around the world every day. But I think you'll see a
return to normal levels very soon, perhaps in the next 24 hours.
-
- Q: General, you mentioned a disintegration of the New
Orleans Police Department. Do you know how many officers are still on duty?
-
- GEN. BLUM: I would rather not say. I think you'd be better
to refer that question to the mayor of New Orleans. I have my own estimate.
I would say they are significantly degraded and they have less than one-third
of their original capability.
-
- Q: So is it fair to say it is the National Guard that's
keeping law and order in New Orleans?
-
- GEN. BLUM: No. As long as there's one uniformed police
officer in the city of New Orleans, we will send as many National Guard
soldiers to augment, support and work in support of that lone law enforcement
officer as necessary. So if hypothetically there's only one left, who's
in charge? It's still that lone police officer supported by the National
Guard in their role as military support to law enforcement.
-
- We are not in the lead. We have no need nor
intention of imposing martial law or having the military police the United
States of America.
-
- Q: What happened to the other police, general?
-
- GEN. BLUM: Again, that can be best addressed, but what
was told to me by the Mayor day before yesterday is many of them lost their
homes, many of them lost ability to get to the precinct, many of them who
did show up found what they were dealing with so overwhelming and dangerous
or threatening to them as an individual that they made the personal decision
to not risk their life until the situation made more sense to them. That
was an individual decision, it was not the police chief's decision or the
mayor's decision. I think that the mayor and police chief are working right
now to reconstitute the New Orleans Police Department, but that question
would much better be addressed to them for detail.
-
- Q: General, two quick questions. One is, initially you
said eventually there would be upwards of 30,000 National Guard troops
in the affected states. Is that number still good, or will it go higher?
-
- GEN. BLUM: Jamie, we're so close to 30,000 right now
that you could say 30,000.
-
- Q: Is it going to go higher than that?
-
- GEN. BLUM: Yes, it is.
-
- Q: Any idea?
-
- GEN. BLUM: My estimate is it's probably going to go to
40,000 to do all of the multiple tasks that need to be done simultaneously
in Louisiana and Mississippi. This is a huge operation. It's a size about
the size of Pennsylvania. We can't just focus on Philadelphia or Philadelphia
and three counties. We have to take a holistic approach at the whole huge
region there. It's a dynamic situation. It's not staying static for us.
The topography is not staying static, the hydrography (sic) or the water
level isn't staying static for us; the population is not staying static.
It's migrating and moving around. There are literally tens of thousands
of people who left New Orleans, rightfully so.
-
- And I want to say this. I think a big part
of this story that's been missed is well over a million people evacuated
New Orleans. Had someone not had the foresight -- there's been a lot of
criticism of planning, and who did what and who didn't do what. Someone
saw the storm coming. Somebody made the call early enough to get over a
million people out of that city which is a magnificent and significant
achievement that seems to be totally overlooked.
-
- Imagine the conditions we're talking about
now with any part of that million still in the city.
-
- Q: Just a point of clarification. So you think it will
probably go to about 40,000 between Louisiana and Mississippi.
-
- GEN. BLUM: Yes, I do.
-
- Q: And it's about 30,000 now?
-
- GEN. BLUM: It is -- today, it's 27,000 as of 6:30 this
morning. I expect to flow about 3,500 more troops into Louisiana today,
about 2,500 additional National Guard troops -- When I say troops now,
because now that the President has ordered some of the active forces in
there I don't want to confuse it, so I'll call them National Guardsmen
so there's a clear distinction. 3,500 National Guardsmen will go into Louisiana
by sundown today; 2,500 more will go into Mississippi today. Tomorrow the
exact same numbers will reverse because we think we'll be about where we
need to be and we'll start changing the composition, the type of skills
coming in. And I may have to adjust that so that our parallel efforts that
the president has coming in through Northern Command and that will be under
the command of General Honore' is synchronized with the same kind of capabilities
that we were originally planning to go and provide without the active component
response, or the Army response.
-
- The response is welcome. I think the President
has made a tough and courageous decision. He wants to leave the governor
in charge of the state, but he wants to make sure that we take decisive
action as a nation to give that governor all of the resources and manpower
necessary to deal with the complex problems that she has in Louisiana.
So to use a simple analogy of a bathtub, I've got my spigot turned on and
it's going at full volume, and I'm filling it up as fast as I can. I think
what happened just this morning in the Rose Garden is the President turned
on a second spigot, which is I think quite helpful and will prove to be
the right decision in the long run.
-
- Q: On the 40,000, when do you expect to reach that level?
-
- GEN. BLUM: By the next week. If you add up what we're
doing in Mississippi and what we're doing in Louisiana, we have a flow
of 3,500 and 2,500, so it's roughly 7,000 a day pouring into the area.
So if you add that up it will take me probably three to four days to get
to 40,000. Then we are assessing the needs every day and the mix, what
skill sets we need every single day.
-
- Q: Do you know the total number of U.S. military personnel
now devoted to --
-
- GEN. BLUM: I will give you a guess. I think the last
DoD figures I have, and I'm not -- this is a rough order of magnitude.
I think if you took the 30,000 Guardsmen that will be there by tomorrow,
I think you have, if you count the Navy contribution also off-shore in
with this, you're probably talking 7,000; and then the president deployed
this morning, what were the numbers they gave you?
-
- Q: Seven.
-
- GEN. BLUM: Seven thousand. So that will be 14,000. That's
starting to be a significant presence. That's 14,000 active force on top
of what will be 40,000 National Guardsmen, that's 54,000 people. That's
a significant --
-
- Now that doesn't mean that will be a constant.
We will be adjusting, again, the skill sets, the capabilities and the numbers
against the requirements.
-
- Q: Across the disaster zone our reporters have consistently
run into people over the past week, victims who have asked where's the
National Guard, why aren't they here, why aren't they helping us? I know
it's not your job to decide where and when aid is delivered. You have to
provide these forces. But as a general who's been there and a commander
with a can-do reputation, I just wanted to ask your opinion. Do you think
in retrospect that more creativity, more ingenuity could have been employed
early on to use the military to deliver more aid to people sooner?
-
- GEN. BLUM: It would be easy to draw that conclusion,
Jamie, but if you've ever been to Gulfport, remember the highway that runs
along the coast was a four lane super highway. It was impassable. So where
you could -- if a normal infrastructure existed, no question, you could
have saturated the area with more, faster. But we were putting forces in
in very degraded infrastructure. Airports had reduced capability. Roads,
in some cases we had only one road in because of lack of bridges, flooding,
loss of infrastructure, or the structures were too unsafe to cross or we
would become casualties ourselves.
-
- So we couldn't rush to failure on this thing
and we had to take a more measured approach than any of us wanted. But
to call this response late to need, if you're talking about the National
Guard response, that would be a low blow to some incredible individuals
who were on watch before the storm, harbored during the storm, on the scene
immediately after the storm cleared. Just think about, when was the storm?
When did it hit? How many days ago?
-
- Q: Early Monday.
-
- GEN. BLUM: And today is what?
-
- Q: Saturday.
-
- GEN. BLUM: In that short time we're talking numbers of
40,000. This is just military. You're talking about being able to provide
food, fuel, water for an unknown number of people that we have to first
fine and discover in lots of cases, and then immediately care for with
extremely high expectations.
-
- I think the response of the National Guard
is nothing less than unbelievably sensational. It's actually better than
any planner could ever expect.
-
- When I first laid out the numbers of reinforcements
that would be coming into theater and then I went down there to ensure
that they arrived so that the plan was in fact being executed, I was very
surprised to find that every single projection that we had made had been
exceeded because of the magnificent response that we're getting from all
over this nation. Puerto Rico, in the height of hurricane season, is sending
1,000 soldiers to the relief effort. Think about what that means. One of
the first forces in there were coming in from Oregon, Washington, Alaska.
Forty states have soldiers there. Others are lined up to come in later
because they have different skill sets that we think we'll need down the
road, particularly as we get some of these roads uncovered and we have
to start with reconstruction and rehabilitation of the area, rather than
just getting in and getting the necessities in, the essentials.
-
- Q: I'd like to get your thoughts on two things. One,
what do you see the role of the active duty troops that are going to be
coming in?
-
- The second thing is you talked about how
no one foresaw that it would become a big law enforcement problem rather
than just a typical search and rescue. Is that still the case? Are there
still other points like the convention center that will require the military
type operations to get in there and restore order and --
-
- GEN. BLUM: Yes, and they're not all in New Orleans. Any
place where you harbor a group of people that have been damaged by the
storm and dislocated from their houses, their lives have been interrupted,
and they've lost in many cases everything, or have nothing on them that
-- These kind of events bring out the best in people, and in some very
limited number of folks brings out the worst in people. The governors have
sent a clear message that citizens that have already suffered enough from
the ravages of the storm, they will not tolerate lawlessness to make them
a victim again. So there's very firm and forceful law enforcement. We have
not suspended any laws. In fact they have invoked some emergency powers
with curfews and all those type of measures. In some states the order has
been given to shoot to kill.
-
- Q: Louisiana --
-
- GEN. BLUM: The governor of Louisiana has given that order.
I think the governor of Mississippi did it earlier.
-
- So this is serious business, and that is
done to ensure that the lives of innocent people that have suffered this
loss are not further traumatized by lawless citizens.
-
- We will put the force in place that is required,
as much as necessary for as long as it's needed. That's the easiest way
I can put it to you. Now who decides what is necessary? That has to be
the legally constituted government and in this case it's the governors
of the states and the president of the United States flew down there to
show his commitment to each and every one of the Gulf state governors yesterday,
and reinforced that he will send them anything and everything within his
legal powers to ensure that they are successful in restoring order and
restoring normal life and regenerating the future of these great states
down in the Gulf Coast.
-
- Q: (inaudible) active duty troops?
-
- GEN. BLUM: Where are they?
-
- Q: No, their role.
-
- GEN. BLUM: The role of the active duty troops is right
now unspecified. I think you heard General Inge in NORTHCOM say probably
what we'll do is there will probably be a division of labor within, or
a division of areas where certain people provide different kind of capabilities,
which will be quite helpful. It will be quite good. What we can do is shift
more of the National Guard into security and law enforcement areas because
they're not bound by posse comitatus and they are legally trained and licensed
to in fact enforce the law for their governors, where the Title 10 active
forces are not, without taking other exceptional measures. If necessary
those measures can be taken by the president.
-
- I'm sure he will take a measured approach
to it, but he'll do nothing short of what is needed. He's made that very
clear to me and to the Governors in his visit in the last two days.
-
- Q: General, does the commitment of such a large number
of Guard forces from so many states in any way affect the planning for
the rotation of forces to Iraq and Afghanistan?
-
- GEN. BLUM: No, and I'll tell you a specific example why.
I have the 1st Brigade of the 34th Division with their units to come out
of the Great Lakes region which are nearby in Camp Shelby, Mississippi.
I was very careful, since they are so close to deploying for Iraq, that
I did not want to divert their attention for this unless it was absolutely
necessary, and if it were, we would. But other states came in and replaced
their capabilities. This is a combat unit and we weren't really going to
use combat skills. I didn't want them to lose their focus. So we did not
interrupt the flow of units that were going overseas to fight for this.
-
- There is one unit, however, there is an exception.
There is one unit, a small unit, that repairs aircraft that is housed and
the people that come from that National Guard unit live right in Gulfport,
Mississippi. And many of them -- we can't find them. We know their families
are scattered and we know their houses are devastated. We can work around
them not going to Iraq, so they have been pulled off the list. But that
is the only unit that I am personally aware of that we've made any alteration
whatsoever about the deployment sequence.
-
- We can handle the overseas warfight commitment
and still defend our homeland and support the Department of Homeland security
simultaneously.
-
- People say well, aren't you stretched too
far? Aren't you about ready to run out?
-
- There are 200,000 citizen soldier National
Guardsmen left with the right kind of skills around this nation that you
would play hell keeping out of coming down there if needed to help fellow
Americans in need, I can tell you. They're the greatest young men and women
that this nation has ever seen. They're willing to drop their proverbial,
their plow and pick up their musket on a moment's notice to be 21st Century
minutemen and women and go. When this country needs them, they will be
there, and nobody will stop them from coming. That's what makes me so proud
actually to be the chief of an organization like that.
-
- Thanks for your questions, thanks for your
time.
-
- Q: One quick follow-up. Is it fair to say, using the
convention center as an example, that one reason it took until Friday to
get aid in is the National Guard needed time to build up a response team
with military police to ensure law and order because the New Orleans Police
Department had degraded so much?
-
- GEN. BLUM: That is not only fair, it is accurate. You've
concisely stated exactly what was needed, and I told you why. We took the
time to build the right force. The outcome was superb. No lives hurt, nobody
injured. It was done almost invisibly.
-
- Q: And you estimate there's about a third of the New
Orleans Police Department left. Do you remember about how many are in the
New Orleans Police Department?
-
- GEN. BLUM: On a normal day they should have 1,500 paid
officers in New Orleans, give or take. Some people have said it's 1,650.
It's in the rough order of 1,500-man police force, and I think the mayor
told me they're down to less than 500.
-
- Thank you.
-
- Q: Thank you.
|
