By William M. Arkin
April 17, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" - District of Columbia
Mayor Muriel Bowser yesterday ordered a one-month
extension of the state of emergency, as cases in the
region grow at a rapid pace. Federal officials in
the nation's capital expect a New York-like epidemic
in the District, Maryland and Virginia, one that
could potentially cripple the government.
"No one wants to talk evacuation,
especially when there's nowhere to go," says a
senior military officer working on continuity of
government planning; he requested anonymity because
he is not authorized to speak on the record.
But a little-known military task
force charged with evacuating Washington has already
been activated, a task force charged with the most
sensitive government mission of "securing"
Washington in the face of attackers, foreign and
domestic—and if necessary, moving White House and
other key government offices to alternate locations.
Activated on March 16, Joint Task
Force National Capital Region (JTF-NCR) is chartered
to "defend" Washington on land, in the air, and even
on its waterfronts. The special task force, the only
one of its kind in the country, demonstrates how
there are two sides of government preparedness. The
public face, and even the day-to-day work of most
men and women assigned to JTF-NCR, is the same as it
is everywhere else in the country—medical support,
delivering supplies, manning health-check stations.
But behind the scenes, JTF-NCR is
responsible for what the military calls "homeland
defense": what to do in the face of an armed attack
on the United States, everything from guarding
Washington's skies to preparing for the civil unrest
that could occur if a nuclear weapon were detonated
in the capital. But most immediate, JTF-NCR is
charged with facilitating continuity of government,
particularly moving civil and military leaders to
secret locations were the order given to evacuate
the city.
Ever since National Guards started
to activate countrywide, Pentagon officials have
insisted that men and women in uniform are not
conducting secret missions and that they will not
administer or enforce "stay at home" quarantines.
The Pentagon has also rejected reports, including
articles in
Newsweek, about martial law or other
extreme contingency plans, arguing that the Guard
remains under strict control of state governors,
while federal troops support civil agencies like
FEMA.
And yet the activation of Joint Task
Force National Capital Region, including almost
10,000 uniformed personnel to carry out its special
orders, contradicts those assurances. JTF-NCR is not
only real and operating, reporting directly to the
Secretary of Defense for some of its mission, but
some of its units are already on 24/7 alert,
specially sequestered on military bases and kept out
of coronavirus support duties to ensure their
readiness.
On March 12, families and friends
gathered at a Decatur, Illinois, National Guard
armory to say their goodbyes to guardsmen and women
who were shipping out.
"This is my first time getting to do
something big for my country," Alycia Thomas, 29, an
Army Specialist from Peoria, told the local Herald &
Review.
All anyone would say was that two
Blackhawk helicopter companies of the 106th Aviation
Battalion were headed to Fort Belvoir, in the
northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. There,
"something big" was a special assignment in support
of Joint Task Force–National Capital Region.
