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Use of military in quelling domestic unrest

The Army Times newspaper recently ran an article about the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team. The article written by Gina Cavallaro, revealed that "Beginning October 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks." Cavallaro also writes that "they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control" as well.

The force will go by the name chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced "sea-smurf." It was reported that the sea-smurfs have spent 35 of the last 60 months in a combat zone, and now will spend their "dwell time" -- the time troops are required to spend to "reset and regenerate after a deployment" -- armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets.

Officially formed to respond to major disasters, such as a nuclear or biological attack, the sea smurfs fall under the U.S. Northern Command, a military structure formed on Oct, 1, 2002, to "provide command and control of Department of Defense homeland defense efforts." Military participation in domestic operations was made illegal with the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878. The John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, however, included a section that allowed the president to deploy the armed forces to "restore public order" or to suppress "any insurrection." While a later bill repealed this, President Bush attached a signing statement that he did not feel bound by the repeal.

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