GlobalSecurity.org In the News

The Gazette May 16, 2006

Vigorous, sweeping border overhaul

By Tom Roeder

While national experts fretted that border security duty is too much for the overtaxed National Guard, commanders in Colorado said Monday they are ready to go.

The Colorado Guard hit full strength in 2006 after recruiters failed to meet expectations in the prior two years, a shortfall blamed on Iraq. About 200 Colorado Guard soldiers are in Iraq, and 400 more are training for war duty, including scores from Colorado Springs, and the Guard is on alert for a dangerous wildfire season.

Commanders said they can handle border duty, too. “We have no problem with what we understand our missions to be,” said Col. Hans Kallam, who oversees missions for the Colorado National Guard, including homeland security.

A handful of Colorado Guard soldiers have already been assigned to the Mexican border, supporting Colorado Springs-based Northern Command’s efforts to stop drug smuggling and terrorist infiltrations. It’s unclear, though, if any of Kallam’s soldiers will be sent south in response to President Bush’s announcement Monday.

If they are, they’ll find themselves in a supporting role, following the lead of civilian agencies. Armando Carrasco, a spokesman for Northern Command’s Joint Task Force North in Fort Bliss, Texas, said there are limitations on what soldiers can do in terms of securing the border.

“They cannot search, seize, detain or make arrests,” he said.

If troops need law enforcement, he said, they call civilians with the Border Patrol and other police agencies.

A call-up would be nothing new for the Colorado Guard. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Colorado Guard members have been called up for duties ranging from guarding airports to policing the highways of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The pace of work took its toll — experienced soldiers who were sent to Iraq have been quitting and would-be recruits have been scared off by the prospect of spending a year in a war zone, commanders have said. In 2005, many Colorado Guard units were considered too understrength to be sent to war.

About three-quarters of the state Guard’s 3,200 soldiers are available, Kallam said, so there will be enough troops to fight fires and send some south.

Civilian experts doubt the Guard can keep morale high while serving open-ended tours in the Southwestern deserts.

“It gets hot down there, too,” said John Pike, executive director of the defense thinktank GlobalSecurity.org.

Pike called the border mission a “photo opportunity” for President Bush that will result in a temporary boost in voter support but could have longterm consequences on the National Guard.

“The mobilization rates for these people have gotten completely outside their experience,” Pike said, noting that the more part-time soldiers are called to full-time duty, the less likely they are to stick in the service.

Pike also predicted that many Guard members will bristle at being called upon to do the Border Patrol’s job.

“If they wanted to do that, they could have joined the Border Patrol,” he said.

The National Guard Association was also looking at the border prospect with suspicion. John Goheen, the association’s spokesman, said he worries that Guard troops who have already been to Iraq could get pulled to the border, possibly crushing morale.

THE MISSION

NUMBERS: About 6,000 National Guard members at a time will be assigned to the southern U.S. border in twoweek stints. The yearlong program is to begin next month. The Guard forces would be reduced to 3,000 troops at a time during the plan’s second year. As many as 156,000 Guard members could end up serving a stint on border duty, said Frances Townsend, President Bush’s homeland security adviser.

DUTIES: National Guard

troops will not chase down illegal immigrants but will play behind-the-scenes roles in support of border guards, officials said Monday.

They would not be required to arrest illegal immigrants, but instead would work under federal Title 32, which Lt. Col. Mike Milord, a National Guard spokesman, said allows Guard soldiers to support law enforcement activities.

Among the tasks they are likely to perform: training federal Border Patrol guards, building barriers near the border, improving roadways, providing support for aerial and ground surveillance, analyzing and sharing intelligence, and providing communications systems and transportation, the officials said.

WHO WILL SERVE: Guard

members will come mainly from the four southern border states — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — but those states’ governors may also use Emergency Management Assistance Compacts to get Guard troops from other states. Any such cross-border arrangements would be coordinated by Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon.

IMPACT ON TRAINING: The two-week deployments for each guard unit will take the place of the units’ normal twoweek summer training periods. The arrangement is designed to alleviate stress on Guard soldiers who have done yearlong tours in Iraq, Afghanistan or Kosovo. But by giving up the units’ only block of sustained training time, it will complicate the task of preparing guard troops for their primary roles — responding to natural and other disasters and conducting combat and peacekeeping missions overseas.

COST: Nearly $2 billion is designated for border security in an emergency spending bill Congress is considering that would fund the deployment. Bush will also ask lawmakers to pay for 6,000 new Border Patrol agents, adding to a current force of about 12,000.

BACKGROUND: The 420 National Guard members assigned to the Mexican border are mostly technicians who tote laptops, surveillance gear and blueprints — not guns. Since 1989, Guard members have been deployed in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California to support U.S. Border Patrol agents, federal drug enforcement agencies and police, according to guard officials.

About 10,000 Border Patrol agents are deployed along the 2,062-mile U.S.-Mexico border, and patrol hours climbed about 167 percent from 1997 to 2005. But there is no clear link between staffing and arrests, or arrests and a reduction in the flow of illegal immigration, analysts say.