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from here on November 12, 2008
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Elite combat brigade for homeland security missions raises ire of ACLU
By Erin Rosa 11/2/08
In the next three years the military plans to
activate and train an estimated 4,700 service members for specialized domestic
operations, according to Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern
Command, which was created in 2002 for homeland defense missions.
The comments, made at the annual National Homeland Defense and Security
Symposium in Colorado Springs last week, reveal more details about the recent
stationing of active military personnel inside United States borders for what
officials say is a mission centering around responding to catastrophic
emergencies.
In September the Army Times reported that the
3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team — a unit based in Fort Stewart,
Ga., that most recently spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in
full battle gear — would be put under the control of Northern Command, located
on Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
Military representatives claim that the unit, now referred to as the Consequence
Management Response Force, is only supposed to assist in responding to terrorist
attacks or natural disasters, but that hasn’t stopped numerous civil liberties
advocates from speculating just how closely the military will be involved with
law enforcement issues falling under a state’s jurisdiction.
“This isn’t a military police brigade or a civil affairs brigade. This is
actually a combat brigade being assigned a domestic mission,” said Mike German,
national security counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative
office in Washington., D.C.
The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act Request last week with the
Department of Justice and the Pentagon asking for records relating to the
assignment of domestic forces to the Northern Command.
“One of our founding touchstones of democracy is that the military is not to be
used against the American people. Over a hundred years ago that sentiment was
put into law in the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibited the military from
being involved in law enforcement functions,” German said. “Our hope is to find
as much information as we can to challenge whether this is appropriate or not
and to create some public awareness about what’s going on”
Now the commander of Northern Command claims that at least two more military
units will be stationed inside the county in the next two years, contributing to
an estimated total of 4,700 specially trained service members.
“It’s to help us manage the consequences of a large-scale event,” said Renuart.
“We have one [unit] now trained and equipped and assigned to the Northern
Command. We’ll grow a second one this calendar year of 2009 and a third one in
the calender year 2010 so we can provide the nation three sets of capabilities
that could respond to an event of the size of 9/11 or larger.”
According to Renuart, that means the units will have unique training in the
logistics and medical fields.
“These are medical personnel, they’re chemical decontamination teams, they’re
engineering teams, they’re logistics folks,” Renuart said. “It is really a force
designed to respond to an event of catastrophic size. There have been some who
say that this is designed as a law enforcement activity or that it will somehow
be used to take away the authorities of a governor or a state, and that’s
absolutely not the case.”
But German isn’t convinced.
“It’s fine for the general to say that,” the counter-terrorist operations
specialist said. “But we want to know what the policies actually are, what the
roles are and what the regulations are to see whether this is actually complying
with the law.”
During the symposium Renuart admitted that the Northern Command has assisted
regularly with law enforcement activities in the past.
“Here in Colorado every day we’re integrated with 45 other federal agencies in
our headquarters planning for not only the natural disasters, but what would
happen if a chemical attack was brought into our country by a terrorist
organization,” Renuart said, emphasizing the command’s roles with intelligence
and supporting anti-drug efforts.
“How do we track intelligence information that might identify networks of
terrorists that might be around the world trying to get to us? How do we support
law enforcement every day in the fight against narcotics entering illegally in
our southwest borders? All of these things are part of the Northern Command
mission.”
Said German, “It seems to be an incremental approach where the military is being
used for narrow missions, but then more and more types of narrow missions until
they all combine into one overarching mission.”
It is currently unknown what units may be assigned to domestic tasks in the next
two years, but members of Northern Command will undergo a large-scale exercise
this month simulating a destructive earthquake in southern California.
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