Report Proves Iraq War Affected Katrina Relief Effort

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina we all watched in stunned disbelief, day after day, as the images on our TV's defied all our preconceived beliefs of how strong and powerful our country is supposed to be. After the initial week long shock, things settled down, but then equally as unbelievable was the spin that some people were willing to believe.

I actually had a debate with some Republicans who did not think that the Iraq War slowed down the response time in any significant way. They thought that the affected states still had enough National Guard troops, but it was those local officials who are to blame for not deploying the troops properly. It is a serious problem that we face in this day and age where so many people get their information from biased sources like FoxNews, talk radio, or anonymous emails written by God knows who that get endlessly forwarded.

What is so disheartening is that it takes this article to prove that there were not enough National Guard troops in Louisiana and Mississippi because so many of them were deployed in Iraq. Shouldn't common sense have led all of us to realize that this was probably the case? For the past couple years there have been endless reports about our military being stretched too thin, about too many of the troops in Iraq being National Guard and reserves, about extended tours of duty and in some cases troops being forced to do 2 or 3 tours of duty, about the Army failing to meet their recruitment goals, and the list goes on and on.

To ignore those facts, and in the face of indisbutable images of an entire Gulf Coast region that slipped into chaos for several days, and to not recognize that those National Guard troops being in Iraq was a detriment to the people in the Gulf Coast who needed them to restore order is to not be able to add two plus two. To be unaware of those facts in the first place is to be walking around blind with FoxNews as your seeing eye dog.

From an independent report commissioned by The Secretary of Defense:
"Another major factor in the delayed response to the hurricane aftermath was that the bulk of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard was deployed in Iraq.

"Even though all the states have 'compacts' with each other, pledging to come to the aid of other states, it takes time, money and effort to activate and deploy National Guard troops from other states to fill in".