Word: civilian
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...team out of Fort Stewart, Ga., have already been engaged in the new assignment, according to Air Force Lt. Col. Almarah Belk, a spokeswoman at the Secretary of Defense's office. The $556 million, five-year training program is part of a broader, $2.3 billion FEMA project to have civilian authorities in states such as Massachusetts, South Carolina and Washington work with the military to develop response plans to a range of potential disasters, from a hurricane and earthquake to a terrorist attack and a pandemic...
Theoretically, even pacificists would probably admit that no one can respond as quickly and efficiently to a major U.S. disaster as the military. But the news that active duty soldiers fresh from a combat tour of Iraq will be gearing up to assist civilian agencies charged with responding to anything from accidental chemical spills to terrorist attacks has sparked mixed reactions from experts in emergency management and civil liberties advocates. (Read "Why Disasters Are Getting Worse...
Skeptics of the military mission at home question whether this signals a "creeping militarism" into our civilian culture and the erosion of the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old law that specifically bars the President from using the military for law enforcement in the United States...
...emergency manager, who asked not to be named, says people on the civilian side worry about how to separate FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security, how to keep it professional and not "a weak sister of the military." At the same time, most civilian emergency managers recognize the military has specialized training in chemical, biological, nuclear and urban warfare. With the current threat of dirty bombs and improvised explosive devices, it makes sense to have the military available to deploy to a disaster of that nature anywhere in the United States...
...From Andrew on, I've believed there is a civilian mission for the military," the emergency manager says. "We needed what they uniquely could provide in Andrew, and it was needed again in Katrina...On the personal side, I have fears that urban-warfare-trained commando units could do the bidding of the government in more malevolent and malignant ways...