|
|
|
|
|
Guard faces up to 2 years on border Mark Lisheron / Cox News Service | June 18 2006 Operation Jump Start will cost taxpayers more than $750 million for the first 16 months . Austin, Texas | The 6,000 National Guard troops ordered to the U.S.-Mexico border by President Bush will stay up to two years, strictly to support the Border Patrol, not to join or supplant it, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the U.S. National Guard Bureau, said Thursday in Austin. Blum and Paul McHale, assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense, were at Camp Mabry to kick off the assembly of Texas Guard troops for deployment to the border. They said the troops will observe illegal border movement, gather intelligence and build border barriers, while the interdiction, confrontation and arrest of illegal border crossers will remain in the hands of the Border Patrol. "This is not a military mission," Blum said at the Camp's Military Museum. "This is not militarizing. This is not an invasion." McHale added: "We would send the wrong message to our friends and neighbors to the south to have a large visible buildup along the border." About 200 command control, planning and liaison personnel have been assembled at Camp Mabry and will be moving to the border within days, Blum said. After receiving training, the next 581 Guard members will be sent the Border Patrol stations in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California to replace Patrol officers who have been, by necessity, doing duties other than law enforcement, he said. The Guard expects to have sent 2,500 troops to the border by the end of June and be at full strength by the end of July, Blum said. Half of the total force will be trained in mostly covert surveillance operations and are expected to report what they see to the Border Patrol, Blum said. McHale estimated that Operation Jump Start will cost taxpayers more than $750 million for the first 16 months of a mission that is planned to be completed in two years or less. The operation will involve no more than 2 percent of the total U.S. National Guard force and will take nothing away from its primary mission to provide for national defense, McHale said. Troops posted in areas where they might have contact with illegal border crossers will be armed and will be under orders only to defend themselves, Blum said. Critics of the Guard deployment to the border frequently point to the fatal shooting of a teenage shepherd by U.S. Marines on a drug patrol near the border in West Texas in 1997. "The border should not be militarized," Blum said. Operation Jump Start will parallel Operation Rio Grande, a second observation and support mission along and near the border that also involves the Texas Guard, said Charles G. Rodriguez, Adjutant General of the Texas National Guard. Rodriguez said he will head both missions in the state. ---------------------------------------------------
Prison Planet.tv: The Premier Multimedia Subscription Package: Download and Share the Truth! Please help our fight against the New World Order by giving a donation. As bandwidth costs increase, the only way we can stay online and expand is with your support. Please consider giving a monthly or one-off donation for whatever you can afford. You can pay securely by either credit card or Paypal. Click here to donate. |
