Where is the National Guard?

National Review contributing editor James S. Robbins has the answer in an article online today, and you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing.

There are 1,012,000 soldiers on active duty, in the Reserves, or in the National Guard. Of them, 261,000 are deployed overseas in 120 countries. Iraq accounts for 103,000 soldiers, or 10.2 percent of the Army. That’s all? Yes, 10.2 percent.

Even if you add the troops in Afghanistan and Kuwait, you only have 12.6 percent of the military out of country.

According to Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, 75 percent of the Army and Air National Guard are available nationwide. In addition, the federal government has agreed since the conflict in Iraq started not to mobilize more than 50 percent of Guard assets in any given state, in order to leave sufficient resources for governors to respond to emergencies. In Louisiana only about a third of Guard personnel are deployed, and they will be returning in about a week as part of their normal rotation.

So much for the idea that Iraq prevents us from a proper response to Katrina.

Now the real question is: Why has it taken so long to understand the seriousness of the situation and the volatile nature of those who are still stranded in New Orleans?

No hurry for the answer: there's a lot of work that needs to get done. We can argue about the pre-planning later.