Book Description

The Department of Defense is also in the process of reevaluating its contribution to homeland security in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Of particular concern is the DoD plan for assisting civilian authorities in consequence management - the measures taken to protect public health, safety, and the environment, to restore essential government services, and to provide emergency relief to governments businesses and individuals affected by the consequences of terrorism. A significant DoD contribution to the consequence management aspect of homeland security has been the development of the National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction - Civil Support Team (WMD-CST), a new type of unit designed to provide civilian authorities military support in response to WMD attacks involving the use of nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological (NBCR) weapons. The development of the WMD-CST concept has raised considerable debate over the merits of the new organization. Previous authors argued that the WMD-CST is incapable of providing timely support to local authorities. Others take the criticism of the WMD-CST a step further, calling into question the ability of the Department of Defense to provide personnel sufficiently trained to provide meaningful support to civilian first responders. Positive reviews emphasized the WMD-CSTs' ability to respond rapidly to events, because of their ability to operate under Title 32 or Title 10 authority. This monograph determines whether the National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team (WMD-CST) is an effective organization for conducting Military Support to Civilian Authorities in response to a WMD attack in the United States. The determination is made by evaluating the actual performance of WMD-CSTs against the required capabilities specified in the original Presidential Decision Directives, legislation, Federal regulations, and Department of Defense initiatives that shaped the national consequence management strategy: specifically: 1) Defense Reform Initiative #25 (the Tiger Team report); 2) the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996; 3) Presidential Decision Directives 39 and 62; and 4) the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Federal Response Plan of 1998. The results of audits of the WMD-CST program and the actual performance of WMD-CSTs since September 2001 are compared to their required performance. The analysis identifies where the WMD-CSTs fell short of accomplishing the required missions, and recommends solutions for the shortfalls. This study finds that the WMD-CSTs will never be able to perform as required, mainly because they will not be able to arrive on the scene of a WMD attack in time. The inability of the WMD-CST to perform as required is due to the flawed nature of the employment concept outlined in the Tiger Team report that created the WMD-CST. The WMD-CST employment concept fails because it relies on the invalid assumption that four hours is a rapid enough response time for a WMD attack. The employment concept implied in the Tiger Team report requires the WMD-CST to perform first responder missions that must be performed within an hour of a WMD attack in order to be of value in minimizing civilian casualties s in order to be useful, yet positions the WMD-CST in a manner more appropriate to a follow-on support unit. Because the WMD-CST is a regional asset that requires state-level approval to be employed, it cannot respond in time to perform these functions. This study recommends that the WMD-CST mission and structure be redefined to remove the requirement to perform first-responder missions, and to emphasize pre-incident and post incident support to civilian emergency responders to facilitate DoD consequence management in the event of a WMD attack. The mission of the WMD-CST should be reduced to pre-incident coordination and post-incident consequence management support to first responders.