Pentagon Plans to Field 12 New WMD Civil Support Teams

A senior U.S. defense official said last week that he would make recommendations “within the next month” on where the U.S. Defense Department should create 12 new National Guard WMD Civil Support teams (see GSN, April 12).

In an interview with Inside the Pentagon, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense Paul McHale said a major criterion for choosing the next 12 states to receive WMD Civil Support teams would be the states’ population densities. The Pentagon has also considered factors such as defense industrial base sites, “historical sites of national importance” and conference report language in the fiscal 2004 defense appropriations bill that calls for ports and coastal areas to receive “special attention,” he said.

There are currently 32 teams certified nationwide, with two based in California, according to Inside the Pentagon. The fiscal 2003 defense authorization bill authorized the creation of an additional 23 teams, about half of which will be the 12 McHale is set to recommend to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (Jeremy Feiler, Inside the Pentagon, Nov. 13).

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