By Emelie Rutherford
Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) is pushing the Pentagon to bring more National Guard equipment home from Iraq for use in the United States.
In an interview with Defense Daily, the congressman said he is concerned not only about generators and hospital equipment but also larger vehicles such as bulldozers and troop-transporting trucks being left in Iraq. Taylor’s campaign to compel the Defense Department to bring more National Guard items home, as the U.S. military draws troops out of Iraq, could play into any plans for procuring such replacement equipment.
Taylor noted that at Camp Shelby, in his congressional district, officials do not have all of the approximately 30 Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicles (MRAPs) the military center is slated to receive for training. And the base commander further said he would like even more MRAPs than it has been allotted, the lawmaker said.
Taylor is particularly concerned about National Guard troops not having all the critical-dual-use equipment they need for their state missions. His district was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the Mississippi National Guard had a significant equipment shortage because items were left behind in Iraq. Non-lethal excess items the Guard doesn’t need should be made available to federal, state, and local government entities in the United States, he argued.
“It’s a whole range of equipment,” Taylor said. “What I want is those things put online and…give the different communities the opportunity of going online (and saying), ‘Yeah. I’m willing to pay X number of dollars to have that shipped home from Iraq, because it’s still cheaper than buying one here.'”
“Cities are struggling to tighten their belts, counties are struggling, states are struggling, and so all the more reason that they’re more likely to look for a bargain when it comes time to add to their fleet or replace something in their fleet,” Taylor added.
The congressman, a senior House Armed Services Committee member, told Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a Dec. 18 letter than he is concerned that much of the equipment in Iraq–so-called non-standard equipment–is “simply unaccounted for” because it was purchased outside of the Defense Department’s and services’ supply chains.
“We must do all that we can to identify and catalogue this equipment and then determine whether it is needed by our troops elsewhere in Iraq or Afghanistan,” Taylor wrote to Gates. “If not needed there, this excess equipment should be made available to the National Guard, other federal agencies, or state and local governments in the United States.”
Taylor’s office said it had not received a response to the letter from the Pentagon as of yesterday.
Yet Taylor said he is encouraged because Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli, told him the National Guard equipment matter is “on his radar screen.”
“I can tell you from past experience when Gen. Chiarelli says he’s going to follow up on something, he follows up on something,” Taylor said during the phone interview last week from Mississippi. He had not yet returned to Washington following the winter-holiday recess at the time, but expected to hear more from the Pentagon after he returned to the Capitol.
Congress is just now starting to resume its work following the recess.