Kansas Tornado Renews Debate on Guard at War

Kansas Tornado Renews Debate on Guard at War - New York Times

By SUSAN SAULNY and JIM RUTENBERG

Published: May 9, 2007

CHICAGO, May 8 — For months, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and other governors have warned that their state National Guards are ill-prepared for the next local disaster, be it a tornado a flash flood or a terrorist’s threat, because of large deployments of their soldiers and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However

Katrina Redux: Bush Admin. Blames Kansas Governor

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the fault was Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius'.

In a spat reminiscent of White House finger-pointing at Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco after the federal government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina, Snow rapped Sebelius for not following procedure to find gaps and then asking the federal government to fill them.

"If you don't request it, you're not going to get it," he said.

One slight problem: Governor Sebelius did request it. In fact, she took her concerns to Bush personally in 2006:

Sebelius, a Democrat, has written the Pentagon twice and spoke about the issue at great length with Bush in January 2006 when they rode together from Topeka to a lecture in Manhattan.

"He assured me that he had additional equipment in his budget a year ago. What the Defense Department said then and continues to say is that states will get about 90 percent of what they had," Sebelius said. "Meanwhile, it doesn't get any better. I'm at a loss."