Iraq War Inhibits Disaster Relief in Kansas

[Cyndalie]

So a town gets leveled by a tornado and the National Guard supplies such as tents, helicopters, machinery and equipment such as bulldozers, and other emergency relief materials (not to mention manpower) are all in Iraq, leaving Kansas with a shortage to deal with the disaster in two places in the state.

"Groups cited the shortage of equipment to deal with the Kansas disaster as the latest example of what they see as the war's detrimental impact on domestic security."

So is this a grim reality or a political ploy to show a growing need from within our own homeland to end the war in Iraq?

For months, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and other governors have warned that their state National Guards were ill-prepared for the next local disaster, be it a tornado or a flash flood or a terrorist's threat, because of large deployments of their soldiers and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then, Friday night, a deadly tornado all but cleared the small town of Greensburg off the Kansas map. With 80 square blocks of the farming town destroyed, Sebelius said her fears had come true: The emergency response was too slow, she said, and there was only one reason.

"As you travel around Greensburg, you'll see that city and county trucks have been destroyed," Sebelius, a Democrat, said Monday. "The National Guard is one of our first responders. They don't have the equipment they need to come in, and it just makes it that much slower."

For nearly two days after the storm, there was an unmistakable emptiness in Greensburg, a lack of heavy machinery and an army of responders. By Sunday afternoon, only about half of the Guard troops who would ultimately respond were in place.

It was not until Sunday night that significant numbers of military vehicles started to arrive.