The state of Florida appears to need a very small fraction of the level of military support generated for Hurricane Katrina, although the Pentagon geared up numerous forces for a quick response. So far, the Air National Guard has airlifted hospital patients from the Florida Keys and has provided communications teams, whose primary benefit to state and local responders has been to enable disparate communications equipment to communicate.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
