All the Readiness Money Can Buy

They are America’s elite terrorism response squads.

Trained at the best military schools, the National Guard’s civil support teams are on call around the clock. Each team commands millions of dollars in equipment: mobile labs to analyze chemical and biological threats, radiation detectors that can identify hazards down to the isotope and a command van that acts as a global switchboard, patching together secure communications.

Ten units have been certified for duty over the last three years, including one in Southern California. An additional 14 squads will have completed their training by the end of the year.

But the teams, and their cost, are coming under fire.

Federal auditors repeatedly have criticized the teams’ mission as muddy, the training as spotty and the equipment as unreliable or even unsafe. The latest report, published this fall by the General Accounting Office, concluded that the teams suffer “continued problems regarding their readiness, doctrine, roles” and ability to roll out quickly in response to a terrorist strike.

On Sept. 11, it took 12 hours for New York’s civil support team to reach the World Trade Center from a base near Albany. Officials say that delay was atypical, caused because the people with jurisdiction over the unit were killed or injured in the attack. But even in an optimal situation, response time would be measured in hours, not minutes. With soldiers often scattered at training schools around the country, assembling a complete squad could take longer still. Lt. Col. James Kish, the chief of civil support for the National Guard, acknowledges the lag is a “real concern.”

And that leaves some local officials griping that the $143 million the federal government has spent on civil support teams so far should have gone instead to buy protective masks for police officers, detection gear for firefighters or decontamination showers for the hospitals that well could be swamped with victims long before the National Guard makes it to the hot zone.

“The federal government has invested a tremendous amount of money into this program, but teams do not seem to have any useful role in disaster response,” said Frances Edwards-Winslow, director of emergency preparedness for the city of San Jose. “If they get there in three to five hours, there’s no role left for them to play.”

Running through disaster drills at this Army base in rural Missouri one recent morning, team members argued their own utility.

With their top-of-the-line military equipment and 600 hours of training, they can help civilian authorities with technical issues, even after an incident is several hours old. They can monitor a chemical plume, predict where it will waft, advise on evacuations. They can set up satellite communications when ground lines are down and make secure calls to the White House. Their lab equipment can identify thousands of chemical agents and a handful of the most likely biological threats. They have the very latest in protective gear.

They may miss the first rush of rescue and response, but hours later they can provide backup to exhausted incident commanders.

“This is a real fine example of guardsmen doing what the Guard does best: homeland defense,” said Sgt. George Newsome, who recently retired from the Louisiana team.

Yet even as they tout their capabilities, team members acknowledge their weaknesses.

Some Gear Has Been Slow to Arrive

The equipment snafus that plagued the early teams--air filters installed backward, respirators with mismatched parts--have largely been resolved, thanks to a new Pentagon purchasing system. But while the Defense Department stepped up its procurement efforts after Sept. 11, some of the gear has been slow to arrive.

The Idaho team got its equipment just one week before its certification test here at Ft. Leonard Wood. The members had only a few days to fiddle with the technology before the gear was loaded on a C-130 transport plane and flown to Missouri for the exam. Even new, it didn’t function perfectly: Capt. Brad Christopher was running through the test drill, analyzing a mock small-town reservoir for suspected chlorine contamination, when a pump on his detection unit failed. Running out of air in his hazardous material suit, he had to improvise, swabbing the ground with litmus paper to see if he could find the hot spot.

His teammates, meanwhile, had to set up their mobile lab in a tent--warmed against the frosty air by a space heater. Their $500,000 laboratory van is on back order. As they positioned their sensitive instruments on card tables, set up on muddy ground, another squad member jogged past shouting his own supply needs: “Anyone got any D batteries?”

If equipment presents one problem; personnel presents another.

It takes 18 months and costs up to $200,000 to fully train a civil support team member. Yet the standard tour of duty is just three years. And while many soldiers say they would like to sign up for a second stint, they complain that there are not many opportunities for promotion within the 22-member squads.

Arkansas National Guard Capt. Clem Papineau, for instance, said he’s been in line for a promotion to major for two years but can’t get his new rank unless he leaves the civil support team--or unless the major on his squad departs, opening a slot for him to advance. Papineau would prefer to stay, but he won’t wait indefinitely for his promotion.

Others find themselves lured away by private-sector firms eager to snatch up their expertise with communications, lab equipment and chemicals. Christopher said he’s been offered several jobs at twice his Army salary of $65,000 a year. He has turned them down. “I’m a career soldier,” he explains.

Turnover in the civil support teams so far mirrors the rate in other Guard units: About 18% leave each year. But since the first teams to be assembled are only now hitting the three-year mark, that number could soon jump.

“The first three-year tour will come up for most of us within about six months, and my hunch is that most will stick on . . . , but it’s really hard to say,” said Lt. Col. Gary P. Leeder, commander of the Idaho team. Personally, he’s considering retirement.

The civil support teams were authorized after the Oklahoma City bombing and the sarin gas attack in Tokyo put terrorism high on the national agenda.

The first 10 teams to be rolled out had major problems, falling way behind schedule and buying questionable equipment. The price tag quickly mounted as well. It takes more than $5 million to establish a single squad and $2.5 million a year more to keep it running. Still, Congress continues to back the concept with zeal. A total of 32 teams have been authorized, including one to be stationed near Sacramento. The Sept. 11 attacks have added urgency to the commitment.

“I’d guess in the last few months, people have found out what these teams are really designed for,” said Bob Scarabino, a police officer on Long Island, N.Y., who spends his off time evaluating civil support team skills on contract with the National Guard.

Indeed, teams across the country have been called out 172 times since Sept. 11, mostly to assess suspicious substances when local haz-mat teams were busy or exhausted.

Summoned to Test Powder at Disneyland

Southern California’s team was summoned to test a white powder smeared along a rail at Disneyland during the height of the anthrax panic. It turned out to be sugar. But Anaheim officials say they’re grateful the National Guard was there with expertise and equipment just in case. “They’ve been terrific,” said Lt. Ray Welch, a police commander.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department too has high praise for the teams. Battalion Chief Ron Watson does admit to resource envy: He wishes some of the National Guard funding could have been used to bolster local departments like his own so he could buy, for instance, more decontamination units for victims of chemical attack. Yet in the end, Watson says, he’s glad the Guard is there with “whiz-bang” technology that civilian departments cannot afford.

Critics, however, question whether the flashy gizmos are necessary.

They point out that in most big cities hazardous material teams are well equipped to make at least a rough analysis of danger within minutes of an incident. And in most states, they’re bound by mutual aid pacts to help out less-capable towns. Local haz-mat teams also are trained to collect samples for further analysis in state labs.

Plus, if a terrorist assault overwhelms local resources, there are plenty of federal units ready to jump in, quite apart from the civil support teams. The Marines have their own response force for weapons of mass destruction. The Army can send a chemical team anywhere in the country within four hours, with advanced detection, disposal and decontamination capabilities. Even the FBI has a hazardous material squad, focused on evidence collection.

“The National Guard units can be of assistance . . . but they are not the group that will save lives,” said Alan Caldwell of the International Assn. of Fire Chiefs.

Drilling at this Ozark Mountain Army base, civil support soldiers brushed off such sniping. The attacks on Sept. 11 and the anthrax scare that followed proved “there’s plenty of work for everyone,” said Maj. George Spence, a former member of Maryland’s team.

If a disaster of similar magnitude hits again, the soldiers here are quite certain their help will be welcome. They vow they will be ready. “Our job is to prevent human suffering,” said the Arkansas team commander, Lt. Col. Keith Bauder. “That’s what we’re here for.”