Defense Department task forces to beef up disaster response.

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The Defense Department is creating special units to assist state and local governments in the event of a major catastrophe, said Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and America's security affairs.

The department is establishing task forces to respond to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, high-yield explosive attacks or accidents. McHale said previously that the Defense Department will step in to assist when the homeland suffers "catastrophic" events similar to Hurricane Katrina or a terrorist attack where a weapon of mass destruction is used.

These task forces will comprise more than 15,000 military personnel from the active, Reserve and National Guard forces, McHale said at a National Defense Industrial Association homeland security conference.

Units will rotate through and be assigned, trained and deployed for the CBRNE mission, McHale said. Officials will divide the forces if needed to respond to multiple, simultaneous events.

One year ago, McHale bluntly stated the Defense Department and other federal agencies were woefully unprepared to respond to 13 of 15 homeland disaster scenarios--most of which are related to weapons of mass destruction. Hurricane response and pandemic flu were the only areas where he believed adequate plans were in place.

Called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive consequence management response force, or CCMRE the team will assist and respond in the event of a major attack only when called up by the president or requested by a governor, a fact sheet said. The majority of personnel will come from the National Guard, McHale added.

Local emergency teams will be the first to respond to a CBRNE incident, followed by state agencies, the document said. The state response would include the National Guard's weapons of mass destruction civil support teams. A second National Guard group, called the enhanced response force package teams, will reinforce the first if needed, the document said. If all these forces are overwhelmed by an incident or attack, the new group could then be called to assist.

"The CCMRF would augment existing on-scene local, state, tribal and federal capabilities," the document said.

The new response force's capabilities will include command and control, search and rescue, explosive ordnance disposal, aviation evacuation, medical response and decontamination.

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