Arizona Daily Star February 18, 2007
Guard cost was $9M for food, housing
Some stayed in posh hotels during S. Ariz. border duty
By Josh Brodesky
The Army National Guard spent at least $9 million in six months last year on food and lodging for troops deployed to Arizona to help secure the border, according to military records.
While some of the money was spent on temporary lodging and lower-end places such as Motel 6 or the Americana Motor Hotel in Nogales, it was also spent at posh digs in the Foothills such as Loews Ventana Canyon Resort and the Westin La Paloma Resort and Spa.
Other upscale lodging such as the Doubletree Hotel and the Hotel Arizona have also been used.
More than two-thirds of that amount — just over $6 million — was spent in the greater Tucson area last year, with $3.5 million going for lodging and the rest split among meals, water and ice, and meals ready to eat in the field.
U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a vocal critic of the deployments, said troops staying at upscale resorts and hotels, off the major transportation routes and far from the locations they would serve, only underscores failures of the deployment and a lack of planning.
But Maj. Paul Aguirre, spokesman for the Arizona Army National Guard, said mission planners had to find places for a large number of troops to stay for weeks at a time on short notice, without knowing exactly where any particular unit would be sent.
Michael Dominguez, director of marketing for Ventana Canyon, said rooms at the resort were not booked, so accommodating the soldiers, even at the less-expensive government rate, was a no-brainer.
Besides, he added, "People at the resort liked seeing the soldiers. … It's funny, but they felt safer."
Army National Guard spending figures for 2006 were provided in response to a public records request. The Army included Nogales lodging in the Tucson total.
In mid-May, President Bush announced Operation Jump Start, sending thousands of National Guard soldiers to Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas to help Border Patrol agents.
Although not allowed to assist with actual law enforcement, the soldiers have built roads, manned lookout posts and improved border barriers, among other tasks.
But the decision to deploy troops to the U.S.-Mexico border was also made in haste, at a time when the debate over immigration reform was surging into the national conscience through protests, marches and counterprotests. The Arizona National Guard, which places the visiting troops, had little time to prepare.
"Unfortunately, Operation Jump Start was very much a pop-up mission," Aguirre said, leaving organizers little time to plan for such a large undertaking.
To date, more than 7,000 National Guard soldiers have served in Operation Jump Start missions in Arizona, Aguirre said. About 6,000 of them have come from out of state.
Tours have ranged from as short as two weeks to as long as six months or a year, he said. Many of the tours are for about 30 days, creating a constant cycle of troops either arriving or leaving the state for border duty.
"It's a logistical challenge," Aguirre said.
While most Guard units were assigned to locations along the border, some were sent to various other spots around Southern Arizona.
Aguirre said the number of troops sent to Arizona was too large, and arrived on too short notice, to house them all at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and Fort Huachuca, in Sierra Vista, where they would normally be placed.
He said he wasn't familiar enough with the missions of the soldiers staying at Westin La Paloma and Loews Ventana Canyon to say why the Arizona National Guard chose those resorts.
But Aguirre defended the decision, saying the rates were within the government per diem, or daily allowance.
Asked if he thought the soldiers could have been placed closer to the border than Tucson's far Northeast Side, he said location was a secondary consideration, after such factors as safety, availability and meeting the government per diem rate.
"I don't think everybody could be placed directly near their missions," he said, citing the initial need for rooms in the Tucson area.
Still, Grijalva said, while lodging is only a fraction of the military operation's total cost of more than a billion dollars, "It points out the shortshortsightedness of the policy."
"The money could have been spent on hiring more Border Patrol agents, Customs agents or new technology for the border," said Grijalva, a Democrat who represents much of Arizona's border with Mexico.
When soldiers stayed at Ventana Canyon last summer, they did so at the then-government rate of $76 per room, far less than the resort's summer rate, but more than the roughly $40-a-night summer rate at Motel 6.
"I can understand how somebody from the outside can look at this and say, 'Why do some of the people get to stay at Loews Ventana Canyon and others stay at Motel 6?' " Aguirre said.
"The truth is, if we could put everybody in that nice of a place, and it was close to the mission, then we would."
But just how close some of the lodging has been to the mission sites is questionable.
The soldiers who stayed at Ventana Canyon this summer would leave at 6 a.m. for the two-hour, 80-mile trip to the desert outside Sells. That didn't include a 30-minute drive from the resort to the Valencia Armory Distribution Center, 5500 E. Valencia Road, so the soldiers could gear up for their mission.
The Army National Guard was unwilling to say how many troops were put up in the more than 2,100 rooms clustered around Tucson International Airport and the South Palo Verde industrial area over the six months — all within four miles of the armory, and typically offering lower rates than the Foothills resorts.
Such long travel distances only undercut the purpose of the operation, said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense, security and space intelligence consultancy based in Alexandria, Va.
"Why they could not get some temporary shelters down there, some mobile homes to build them a camp down there, is beyond me," he said.
Asked if the Guard had any plans to use temporary camps, Aguirre noted the Guard does have a temporary camp — with amenities such as high-speed Internet and washers and dryers — for 300 soldiers outside Yuma. But he didn't offer a direct answer on whether more are planned.
More than $1.1 billion has been set aside for Operation Jump Start for 2007.
While the cost of lodging is a small part of the operation, Pike and Grijalva said it raises concerns about how the rest of the money is being spent on an operation that is open-ended.
"The problem is that, if you have management that is allowing money to leak out this way, then you have to wonder how much money is leaking out somewhere else," Pike said.
"I'd be really interested in knowing who at the National Guard set up their lodging situations," Grijalva said. "It's great for business … but it's a waste of money."
For Army National Guard Sgt. Ed Balaban, the upscale lodging has been a welcome surprise. Originally from New York, he came to Arizona at the end of September and is serving as a public affairs officer in Tucson. He spent six weeks at a hotel before taking an apartment.
Filling up the hotels serves the local economy, he said, and the nicer accommodations provide a welcome break from what can be grueling work on the border, particularly for those soldiers who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"A very pleasant surprise"
"The down time was a very pleasant surprise," he said.
With Tucson hitting its prime tourism season, there are no troops now staying at Ventana Canyon or Westin La Paloma.
Dominguez, the marketing director at Ventana, where soldiers stayed from July until early September, said the resort would take soldiers again this summer if the opportunity is there.
Mark Lindsey, marketing director at La Paloma, where 80 to 100 Guard members stayed for about 10 days this summer, said he, too, would like to see them back if rooms are available.
Aguirre said he didn't know if the National Guard is planning to use resorts for housing this summer. He's expecting the number of soldiers sent here to drop, and he doesn't know if such upscale lodging will be needed.
"We have to find the most prudent, cost-effective way of housing or lodging our soldiers and airmen," he said.
What else $9 million could buy
• 257 Border Patrol agents at a starting salary of about $35,000.
• 9 miles of Border Patrol fencing.
• 300 Border Patrol sport utility vehicles at a cost of $30,000 each.
• 3,000 night-vision goggles at a cost of $3,000 each.
Source: U.S. Border Patrol and Arizona Daily Star archives.
breakdown of food and shelter costs
It cost at least $9 million last year to feed and shelter soldiers in Arizona with Operation Jump Start. Here's a look at how and where that money was spent:
Metro area Lodging Meals Water and Ice MREs* ISAs* Total
Tucson $3,443,547 $1,144,530 $143,283 $926,184 $382,340 $6,039,884
Yuma $1,056,322 $160,843 $172,501 $769,304 $2,158,970
Phoenix $594,337 $184,104 $778,441
Grand Totals: $5,094,206 $1,489,477 $315,784 $1,695,488 $382,340 $8,977,295
* Meals that can be eaten in the field without preparation.
* ISAs are contracts between the National Guard and military installations such as Fort Huachuca for services the installation provides to Guard soldiers.
Source: National Guard Bureau.
© Copyright 2007, Arizona Daily Star
