Military Favors a Homeland Command Forces May Shift To Patrolling U.S.
By Bradley Graham
The nation's top military authorities favor appointing a four-star commander to coordinate federal troops used in homeland defense, part of a broad reorganization that Pentagon officials say could change some forces' primary mission from waging war overseas to patrolling at home.
Although the Pentagon has regional commanders in chief, known as CINCs, who are responsible for Europe, the Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and South Asia, none exists for managing the deployment of U.S. forces in the United States. Creating one now, military officials say, would clarify the chain of command for those troops.
Any extensive use of federal troops on U.S. soil would come despite a traditional aversion to -- and legal limits on -- the use of military forces for domestic law enforcement. But the Sept. 11 attacks and the Bush administration's declared war on terrorism have blurred the distinction between foreign wars and domestic crimes and prompted a rethinking of the Pentagon's command structure and force assignments.
Although Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has yet to make a final decision, senior military officials working the issue say agreement has been reached on establishing a homeland CINC (pronounced "sink").
"There's a consensus of opinion now that a need exists to quickly pin the rose on some four-star commander," a senior official said.
Rather than set up an entirely new command, with all the fresh bureaucracy and expense that would entail, officials have focused on which of several commands already headquartered in the United States could be rejiggered to take on the homeland defense mission. Their deliberations appear to have narrowed into a competition between two candidates, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado and the Joint Forces Command in Virginia.
Responsibility for coordinating all federal activities in homeland defense rests with Tom Ridge and the new White House Office of Homeland Security. The purpose of the Pentagon's new four-star assignment would be to consolidate the chain of command running from the president through the secretary of defense to those federal troops enlisted in the defensive effort.
Historically, the Pentagon has seen little reason to earmark forces for homeland defense, let alone designate a major command for the job. In the event of a terrorist attack, the Pentagon's response plan has relied heavily on such local and regional organizations as police, firefighters, medics and hazardous material teams to deal with the consequences. Only as a matter of last resort were federal troops to be summoned to help.
But after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, military forces have been thrust into new domestic security roles. Air Force jets now regularly patrol the skies over U.S. cities. Thousands of National Guard troops are protecting airports and bridges and assisting at border checkpoints. They also were deployed last week to secure the Capitol grounds after the anthrax scare.
Such new responsibilities have strained Pentagon resources and raised questions about some lines of command. The air patrols have been run by NORAD. The Joint Forces Command has charge of the maritime approaches to the United States. And many of the National Guard troops have been pressed into action by state governors.
"The chain of command is not as clear in the United States as overseas," the senior official said. "We think it's time to clarify things."
Among the most urgent questions confronting the new homeland CINC will be which military units should remain allocated for overseas duty and which need to be tagged for more permanent homeland defense assignments. This question is likely to fall heaviest on the National Guard, which has been struggling since the end of the Cold War to find new roles apart from its traditional one of being ready to augment regular troops in a major war overseas.
About one-third of the Guard's 358,000 soldiers still constitute eight heavy armored divisions. At the same time, Guard members have started assuming a larger share of overseas peacekeeping assignments, relieving some of the burden on regular troops. Elements of the Virginia Guard's 29th Division, for example, are serving in Bosnia.
"One school of thought says we can still do both" foreign and domestic operations, said Army Secretary Tom White. "But the other side says we can't."
Addressing a conference last week on the military's role in homeland defense, Ridge said that the administration would look at whether to shift some Guard units and assets. He also said that regular military troops would be deployed to handle domestic terrorist attacks only as "the last resort," noting that the government had plenty of other options short of that.
The idea for a homeland CINC last received high-level Pentagon consideration three years ago, but then-Defense Secretary William S. Cohen quickly dropped it after protests from civil libertarians and right-wing militia groups alike. Critics expressed alarm at the prospect of military forces encroaching on areas traditionally considered the responsibility of civilian emergency response, law enforcement and health agencies.
Instead, Cohen sought and received approval from President Bill Clinton to establish a permanent task force headed by a two-star general officer and charged with coordinating the military's response to a chemical or biological attack on the United States. That task force, assigned to the Joint Forces Command, was portrayed as a modest effort to prepare for logistical, medical and enforcement demands likely to be placed on the Pentagon in the event of an attack on the United States.
Senior Pentagon officials say times have changed, and at least some of those who were critical of a homeland CINC agree -- up to a point.
"We have no objection in principle to the creation of a homeland commander in chief," said Tim Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "But we're still concerned about the powers he will have, and we'll have strong objections if he's authorized to act in areas better handled by civilian law enforcement."
Edgar warned against the danger of "mission creep" and the risk that military forces could end up threatening individual rights. Recent decades offer cautionary tales about the use of the military in domestic law enforcement -- notably in 1957, when the governor of Arkansas employed Guard troops to block black students from entering a Little Rock high school, and in 1970, when Guardsmen opened fire on students at Kent State University protesting the Vietnam War.
Legal barriers to sending the armed forces into U.S. streets were imposed by the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878, which was prompted by President Ulysses Grant's use of federal troops to monitor elections in the former Confederate states. The act prohibits military personnel from searching, seizing or arresting people in the United States.
Some exceptions already exist, allowing military forces to suppress insurrections or domestic unrest or to assist in crimes involving nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. The bar to military involvement was lowered further in 1986, when President Ronald Reagan directed the Pentagon to assist in the war on drugs.
Since Sept. 11, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the ranking minority member on the Armed Services Committee, has led a push to revise the act.
"It's a doctrine that's served us very well," he said at a hearing Oct. 25. "But there comes a time when we've got to reexamine the old laws of the 1800s in light of this extraordinary series of challenges that we're faced with today."
But congressional opinion on the matter is divided, and several senior Pentagon officials expressed little interest in any fundamental overhaul of the act.
The move to establish a homeland CINC, officials said, is likely to be followed by geographical and other adjustments in some of the combatant commands under what the Pentagon calls the Unified Command Plan. Rumsfeld has urged the top commanders to think more creatively about how to organize to fight terrorism around the world.
A final recommendation on where to assign the homeland role is due to Rumsfeld next month. Officials cited these considerations:
The Joint Forces Command already has responsibility for the maritime approaches to North America, plus land defense of the continental United States. It is located near Washington and has a well-developed relationship with National Guard and reserve components, as well as with federal and state agencies. But if this command were to take on homeland defense, its four-star leader probably would have to shed something -- most likely, his role as head of NATO's North Atlantic region.
NORAD already has charge of protecting U.S. skies and is running the combat air patrols over the United States. It has an extensive communications, command and control network, as well as a strategic location in the center of the country. But it lacks much experience with the land and sea components that would be essential to the homeland defense job.