Durbin: Illinois National Guard Units Face Serious Equipment Shortages; Could Hamper Ability to Respond in Emergencies

Press Release

DURBIN: ILLINOIS NATIONAL GUARD UNITS FACE SERIOUS EQUIPMENT SHORTAGES; COULD HAMPER ABILITY TO RESPOND IN EMERGENCIES

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said he is deeply alarmed at serious equipment shortages now faced by National Guard units in Illinois and across the nation. The letter calls on President Bush to immediately implement a plan to replace the missing items and to fully fund the needs of the National Guard.

A report released on Thursday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is the investigative arm of Congress, showed that Army National Guard units face severe equipment shortages at home partly because they have been told to leave critical items such as armored Humvees, light trucks and other gear in Iraq for replacement troops.

"This is a serious problem - it impacts the ability of these units to respond as they should in a crisis; it affects their ability to conduct training exercises; it affects the morale of the units," said Durbin. "Replacing this equipment has been slow, and the replacement items are often not adequate in terms of quality or quantity. We must not allow this to continue."

The GAO report showed that, on average, National Guard units have only 34 percent of the equipment they need to be at full readiness, which could leave them vulnerable in a domestic emergency.

Durbin said National Guard units in Illinois often fare even worse than the national average and equipment inventories of Illinois National Guard units have been seriously depleted. For example, the inventory tallies show that Illinois Guard units are assigned only:

# 4 percent of the medium trucks needed to maintain full readiness (6 of 166 medium trucks)

# 8 percent of the heavy trucks needed to maintain full readiness (6 of 79 heavy trucks)

# 47 percent of night vision devices (1503 of 3220 night vision devices)

# 63 percent of ground to air radios (766 of 1218 radios)

While these numbers alone are cause for serious concern, the situation may actually be much worse. Some of this assigned equipment is unavailable for use by the state because it is currently in Iraq or elsewhere.

Officials interviewed by the GAO believe the National Guard's response to Hurricane Katrina "was more complicated because significant quantities of critical equipment such as satellite communications equipment, radios, trucks, helicopters and night vision goggles were deployed to Iraq."

In response, Durbin is requesting that the President factor in the cost of replacing this equipment in the defense budgets being prepared now. Durbin said that the total cost of bringing Guard unit inventories up to full levels will cost as much as $10 billion dollars over what the administration intends to spend. Durbin intends to ask that $10 billion be spent over the next five years to restock National Guard inventories.

"Right now, the budget analysts at the Department of Defense are preparing next year's budget for the President. The Department of Defense needs to take into account the cost of replacing this equipment before the problem gets worse," said Durbin.

As of June of this year, Army National Guard units had left more than 64,000 pieces of equipment worth more than $1.2 billion overseas, and according to the GAO report, the Army cannot account for more than half of that equipment. The report said that in addition to what was left overseas, more than 100,000 pieces of equipment from units on the home front have been transferred to deploying units.

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