The Times, Trenton (NJ) March 31, 2003
Part-time answer to full-time fear
By Larry Hanover
Homeland Security officials recently raised the nation's terror alert to orange, or "high risk," telling Americans the chances of an attack are higher because of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Yet New Jersey, which watched the Trenton area become the ground zero of the 2001 anthrax crisis, remains one of 19 states without a full-time National Guard unit specially trained to respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear attack.
The first Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams were established in 1999. Their mission is to race to the scene of a suspected or actual attack, use a high-tech mobile laboratory to determine what warfare agents are present, then assist state and local emergency personnel in responding to the crisis.
But despite progress, the nation's most densely populated state remains dependent on the whims of New York and Pennsylvania if it needs a team during a crisis.
While neighboring states have received federal funding for their teams, New Jersey has been forced to pay the cost of a scaled-down team while waiting for federal money.
The original Department of Defense plan to spread teams over a wide radius rather than by state, failed miserably during the anthrax hysteria, Rep. Jim Saxton, R-Mount Holly, has told congressional colleagues.
New Jersey's neighbors, concerned about needing their teams at home, refused a request for help, Saxton has said.
Saxton's arguments contributed to brightening New Jersey's hopes, at least temporarily, in December when Congress passed this year's national defense authorization act.
An amendment co-sponsored by Saxton instructed the Defense Department to put teams in every state.
But Col. Maria Morgan, the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs' second-in-command, said the war effort apparently is consuming so much attention from federal officials that New Jersey and the other 18 states won't soon receive the millions it would take to establish and sustain a full-time team.
"I had a couple of meetings with the Department of Defense," Morgan said. "If it's up to them, they don't want to add any new teams anywhere until 2005 at the earliest. Their thinking is not to appropriate any money. We say it needs to be appropriated now."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is scheduled to report back to Congress about fielding new teams in June.
In the meantime, New Jersey has to content itself with the advances made by its state-funded team of traditional Guard members, who train part-time and work at civilian jobs.
Top officials say the unit - which was so ill-equipped that it was relegated to the sidelines during the anthrax crisis - still could not respond quickly enough to play a leading role. But it has advanced to where it could support efforts if nerve gas, anthrax or a "dirty bomb" were unleashed.
The team of Army and Air Guard members is moving from Fort Dix to the Lawrenceville Armory, where a homeland security center has been established.
Saxton favors having a federally funded team at Dix or McGuire Air Force Base, where it would be near air transportation.
New Jersey learned a stark lesson during the anthrax attacks, Saxton told colleagues when pressing for his amendment. With Department of Health labs overwhelmed by suspected anthrax samples, civil-support-team help for New Jersey was nowhere to be found.
"Being geographically where we are in the Northeast, close to (potential targets) New York and Washington, I think it's extremely important to have sufficient capability should another one occur," Saxton said last week.
Army National Guard Capt. Dominic Genovese, 41, is one unit member who has no doubt of the value a full-time Jersey team would have.
Genovese, now a Deptford resident, retired from the New York City fire department two weeks ago, having spent the weeks after the Sept. 11 attack sifting through World Trade Center rubble.
The New York team, based near Albany, helped monitor the air in Lower Manhattan and provided the mobile lab that city's hazardous-material teams lacked, he said.
"Oh, absolutely, (a full-time New Jersey team) would've been able to not only assist New York, but been ready in event some other major catastrophe happened," the 41-year-old said.
Lt. Col. Jerry Gagnon, commander of New Jersey's unit, said his team has had to sweat it out for equipment since being established in 1999. Now, he said, it is about as well-equipped as can be expected without federal dollars.
Team members have Level A Hazmat gear that fully covers their bodies, first-rate breathing packs and, as of last week, a truck that they rigged as a tactical operations center, he said.
Radio equipment is lacking, he conceded. It does not permit them to talk across frequencies to all local and state officials.
What the unit most significantly lacks is the mobile lab, which could detect 90 percent of potential biological and chemical agents, and a communications van, which would have satellite and other links to allow unit members to brief defense officials or contact experts for help assessing a situation, he said.
At this point, team members, with 950 hours of training apiece, can respond to any threat, although not as quickly as a full-time team already assembled in one spot, he said.
Gagnon, whose team has a complement of 22 but has five vacant slots, estimated a four-to-six-hour response time.
Morgan noted it took 10 hours a couple of weeks ago to gather Guard members when Gov. James E. McGreevey activated them for duty protecting bridges, tunnels and airports.
Paul Loriquet, spokesman for the state's Domestic Security Preparedness Task Force, said officials have full confidence in team members' abilities.
But, he said, New Jersey needs full-timers before the unit could play more than a supporting role.
"We'd have 22 full-time specialists at our beck and call and they wouldn't have to be located or deployed," Loriquet said. "The time element is eliminated. And we would have a million-dollar mobile lab."
At one point, the state considered spending more of its money to beef up the team rather than wait for the federal government to do so.
Former acting Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco's chief counsel, James Harkness, said that administration regretted inadvertently freezing $2 million for the team in November 2001, which would have bought new equipment and turned eight team members full time.
Morgan, however, said the unit wound up with $1.5 million, which it used on equipment. There was no point spending the other $500,000 on personnel when the state clearly could not sustain the spending level, she said.
Across the nation, certified teams have performed about 900 operational missions since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Army officials.
Yet there is some question whether civil support teams add much to the equation. An Inspector General's report in 2001 slammed the Defense Department for poorly managing and equipping teams.
"I understand the concerns for units to be based near large population centers," said Francois Boo, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org. "But is one team of 22 individuals enough? What are they supposed to do besides support?"
Gagnon disagreed with Boo's assessment, although acknowledging some sticky issues exist, particularly with the FBI generally not wanting interference by civil authorities during what it deems a criminal investigation.
But, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Bob Stone said, training and equipment for full-time teams have improved dramatically since the report's release. Once a team is federally certified, they have all necessary skills and training, he said.
Morgan vows a full-fledged fight to persuade the Pentagon to give a team to New Jersey, which in 2001 lost out to Alabama, Kansas, Michigan, Tennessee and West Virginia in the last round of applications for a full-time team.
She contends the Pentagon went against its own criteria by ignoring the needs of New Jersey, the nation's most densely populated state and at risk with a pair of nuclear power plants and numerous chemical and pharmaceutical-production facilities.
Gagnon said he prays it doesn't take a repeat of the 2001 terror tragedies to persuade Pentagon officials that New Jersey needs a full-time civil support team now.
"All you hear about in this war is a ring outside Baghdad," Gagnon said, referring to speculation that Americans will face chemical attack if they get too close to the Iraqi capital.
"No one wants to go into a scenario like that. Unfortunately, that's what we train for. We train to go into one of the worst things you could ever imagine . . . and it may (happen) in the state of New Jersey."
Copyright © 2003, The Times, Trenton (NJ)
