Quote:
|
Originally Posted by KevinTheOmnivore
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by mburbank
Bush rejected suggestions that the nation's military was stretched too thinly with the war in Iraq to deal with the Gulf Coast devastation. "We've got plenty of troops to do both," the president said. "It is preposterous to claim that the engagement in Iraq meant there weren't enough troops."
Why then have we hired Blackwater, a private security firm, to
patrol the streets of New Orleans?
|
That's an interesting question, because from what I had heard, only a collective 1/3 of Louisiana and Mississippi's active-duty guardsmen are in Iraq. Those numbers may be wrong. |
One third in Iraq. One third on stand-by. One third participating in rescue efforts. Assuming that the state would have committed the same percentage of forces to rescue efforts (roughlly 50% of those remaining state-side) had the troops not been deployed to Iraq, you're still assuming approximately a 17% loss in manpower in addition to the loss of equipment that may have made things logistically easier.