An official familiar with the administration’s discussions in Washington said the Pentagon was too reluctant to deploy troops in the run-up to the protests, and when things deteriorated rapidly, it took too long for defense officials to allow the deployment of additional troops.
Faced with an increased examination of the timeline, the Pentagon rejected allegations that defense officials had rejected all requests for assistance and categorically denied them. When the first requests for assistance came in just before 2 p.m., the request was amorphous, a senior defense official said, adding that it was a non-specific request for assistance.
Overwhelmed by the bureaucracy surrounding the deployment of troops in the nation’s capital, it took 90 minutes to approve Mayor Muriel Bowser’s call for more troops, much of which he picked up through phone calls to the mayor and others to determine exactly which forces to send and how to equip, according to a defense official and the schedule released Friday by the office of acting defense secretary Christopher Miller.
At the same time that officials in Washington and the Pentagon are pointing fingers, they are preparing for the next big event, which takes place on the 20th. The month of January will take place around Capitol Hill with the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. Concerns about possible new unrest were highlighted on Friday when Twitter announced that users of its platform were predicting new outbreaks of violence against Capitol Hill and across the country.
As a sign of concern, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy is considering the possibility of arming the National Guard with lethal or non-lethal weapons during the dedication ceremony. If approved, the standard weapons the soldiers would probably carry would be M4 rifles or 9mm Berettes.
Prepared for the Capitol Pogrom
Prior to the planned demonstrations, only 31% of the total DC National Guard force was deployed to monitor traffic and patrol subway stations. They served to support the alphabetical soup of law enforcement agencies, strictly limited in number and limited in the tasks they could carry out due to the rules for their use and the complexity of their operations.
The Capitol Police are responsible and competent. It’s a separate branch of government. They have to ask and plead for support, McCarthy said Friday. Whether it’s the forces at the Capitol complex, the emergency planning for the Rapid Reaction Force, everything they didn’t need for last Sunday.
Fault! The file name is not specified.
Before Wednesday there were crowds everywhere, estimating the number of people who would turn up for the event. Between 2,000 and 80,000 people. But law enforcement reached an agreement after days of scheduling meetings and several phone calls between agencies. No significant violence is expected, although law enforcement officials are aware of the spread of right-wing extremist social media and collusion sites.
It has been mentioned several times, but on the whole, the assessment we have received repeatedly has not reported serious violent protests, Kenneth Rapuano, Assistant Secretary of Defense for the homeland and global security, said Thursday.
In the days leading up to the riots, senior Ministry of Defence officials were in constant contact with law enforcement agencies, including the Ministry of Justice and Mr Bowser.
The final decision on Monday was to mobilize 340 soldiers of the National Guard. The Chemical and Biological Hazardous Materials Unit was ready to assist law enforcement, while the 40 man Rapid Response Unit (RRU) was located at Andrews Air Force Base, some 20 kilometres away.
Before Wednesday, Capitol Hill Police declared that they did not need military assistance.
No further requests have been received from the city and the Capitol Police have declined the offer of further assistance. As early as Monday, the Department of Defense offered more soldiers from the Washington National Guard to assist with law enforcement. The answer has never changed: The Capitol Police didn’t need any more help. A chronology of events, provided by the Office of the Secretary of Defence, shows that Bowser sent a letter to the Acting Secretary of Defence and the Secretary of the Army to confirm that no additional support was needed.
We spoke with the police of Capitol Hill last week and over the weekend, Rapuano said by phone with reporters. We’ve asked the question more than once. And the last return we have is on Sunday, the 3rd. May, received, is that they won’t ask the Ministry of Defense for help.
Fault! The file name is not specified.
The Department of Defense relied solely on police and law enforcement assessments of Capitol Hill, as federal law strictly prohibits military personnel from exercising their own supervision in the United States.
We’re relying on Capitol Hill police and federal law enforcement to assess the situation they’re waiting for, said Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman, who was also on duty. On the basis of this assessment, they considered that they had sufficient staff at their disposal and did not request it. I can’t comment on those assessments and I can’t say whether we would have taken a different stance and done more.
McCarthy had no personal meeting with Capitol police chief Stephen Sand prior to the planned protests. They first met after midnight Wednesday, McCarthy said.
By 2 p.m. Wednesday, when the Capitol building was closed and the Congress Building was evacuated, it was clear to everyone that the Capitol needed more National Guard. And quickly.
Application delayed by bureaucracy
But the deployment of additional soldiers of the National Guard took time, entangled in the complex bureaucracy surrounding law enforcement in the nation’s capital and the chain of command of the Guard itself.
Each state, as well as the District of Columbia, has its own National Guard. But the Washington National Guard works differently than any other guard in the country. In case of emergency, any governor can call upon his or her National Guard Unit for assistance. Just as the president is the commander-in-chief of the army, the governor is the commander-in-chief of the national guard of the state. But since Washington is not a state and does not have a governor, the president acts as commander-in-chief. He delegates his authority to the Secretary of Defence, who in turn delegates his authority to the Secretary of the Army. But the deployment of the National Guard requires a clear request or order.
Fault! The file name is not specified.
This request was made at 1:34 p.m. when Bowser asked for help. Five minutes later, Capitol Police Chief Steve Sand made the same request. The first call to the mayor took more than 30 minutes, a senior defense official said. At 14.22 hours the second meeting was held with the mayor and other city and law enforcement officials.
Even then, the process of deploying National Guard units to assist law enforcement on the Capitol Hill site was not complete. Under the agreement with the city, the Washington National Guard has a number of specific tasks and will be stationed mainly at checkpoints and subway stations. They weren’t armed or equipped to control the crowd. A new mission had to be negotiated between the Ministry of Defence and the city, a process that burned precious minutes while the Capitol building was under siege.
The street guards had to return to the armory to put on their protective clothing and participation equipment, but they remained unarmed. At about the same time, all 1,100 members of the Washington National Guard were activated. The goal was to have all available soldiers in the armory within four hours. All the guards should arrive at the weekend, because some will have to travel out of the area.
When we got the call at about 2 p.m., we mobilized all our guards, got our personnel out of air traffic control, went back to the armory, put on our fighter aircraft and were able to leave in less than two hours and help free the Capitol, McCarthy said Thursday.
The Pentagon has also been very sensitive to the role played by National Guard troops in Washington and across the country in protesting the murder of George Floyd. In June, guards in bulletproof vests and camouflage equipment stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, while police operated throughout the city, including a powerful police force that kept peaceful protesters away from the president’s photo opportunities. At the time, Mayor Bowser said additional enforcement would warm the city up.
An official familiar with the Washington administration’s talks accused the Pentagon of not sending additional troops quickly enough and of not deciding to deploy troops against the rebels who looted Capitol Hill.
Fault! The file name is not specified.
But defense officials emphasize the role of the National Guard as the last line of law enforcement on Capitol Hill, supporting all law enforcement agencies that have all the authority and jurisdiction to operate in Washington.
We don’t think the answer failed. You are currently reviewing the jurisdictional issues that exist in DC between the Capitol and the DC (Metropolitan) Police. They are looking at the planning of these operations, the official said. The fact that we were able to extract most of the forces from the armory or other points in the city, re-equip them and get them to Capitol Hill in about two hours — we think that’s a time frame in which we did a good job there.
McCarthy said the decision to work without a vest was based on an assessment of the situation by law enforcement in Washington. But, he said, the decision to book for the summer came after days of intensified national protests.
Six soldiers were hit on the head with bricks and got concussions and stabbings, McCarthy said, referring to the summer protests. So it’s an escalation measure for your energy defense. But if people sell t-shirts and eat hot dogs at Freedom Plaza, we don’t have to wear bulletproof vests. But if they throw stones, we have to meet them halfway.
National Guard arrives at 1630 hours.
By 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, most of the 340 National Guard soldiers were near the Capitol, where they assisted law enforcement and helped to establish and secure the perimeter around the building. McCarthy worked with Bowser and city police chief Robert Conti.
Thirty minutes later, when the U.S. Marshals, the ATF and the U.S. Park Police joined forces to secure the Capitol, the Department of Defense recognized the need for secure fences and sent a request to the Department of Homeland Security to secure the fences. The fences that could not be climbed had to be brought in from Maryland. By Thursday afternoon, 95% of the closure had been completed.
Fault! The file name is not specified.
At 4:40 p.m., McCarthy met the Governor of Maryland. Larry Hogan, who offered to help the National Guard, which McCarthy accepted. Hogan had already activated his guard, who was in contact with General Daniel Hokanson, the head of the National Guard. One hundred Maryland National Guard soldiers will be in Washington, D.C. for 8 to 10 hours, and another 150 to 200 soldiers will join them later.
Later that night, McCarthy spoke to the governors of Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey about the involvement of their National Guard units. The Ministry of Defense has also agreed to requests from New York and Delaware to recruit soldiers for their National Guard. The structure of the DOT requires the approval of the Secretary of Defence for the entry of an extra-state entity into the city limits.
The first soldiers of the National Guard of Maryland arrived in the capital at 10 o’clock in the morning. Thursday morning, with the arrival of the Virginia National Guard.
By 6:00 p.m., Miller had authorized the deployment of 6,200 National Guards from these six states. They will be deployed in Washington for at least 30 days, in 12-hour shifts with 850 people on Capitol Hill and to assist other police stations.
At 7:15, 3:15. Both houses of Congress and the visit were empty, and members of Congress could return at 8 p.m. to continue the process of certifying the votes of the Electoral College. Shortly after that the planning for the coming days started.
We are focused on developing a plan to ensure that we have sufficient capacity to respond to the next transmission emergency on January 20 to support, McCarthy said.
But concern remains, and McCarthy’s clear indication that he plans to arm the National Guard within the next 30 days underscores the urgency of the situation as federal and local officials try to avoid a recurrence of the violence that rocked the world when Joe Biden became the 46th president.
Barbara Starr and Alex Marquardt of CNN contributed to this report.
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