Marines to hand off decontamination duties to guard.

• Author: Pappalardo, Joe
• Position: Homeland Defense Briefs

Members of the Marine Corps' chemical-biological response unit will be laying down their protective suits and picking up weapons in the near future.

The future will witness the National Guard taking over the responsibility, said Col. Dwight Trafton, commanding officer of the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF.)

The Guard's civil support teams will be taking over as first military responders to a biological or chemical release. In November, the Defense Department announced a fielding plan for 11 new civil support teams, the final step toward fulfilling the request of Congress that every state and territory have one. The 11 teams that are to be funded in the Defense Appropriations Act for 2005 are: the District of Columbia, Delaware, Guam, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont and Wyoming.

CBIRF was formed in 1996. The unit has deployed to many national security events, and responded to anthrax and ricin contaminations of federal office buildings. Additionally, CBIRF teams have deployed overseas for exercises in Jordan, Bahrain, Iceland, Qatar, Kuwait, Italy, France, the Philippines and Japan.

Trafton had some advice on current and future...