Almost a year after Donald Trump’s supporters assault the Capitol in Washington, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin decided to streamline the process for approving a possible military response to civil unrest in the American capital.
In a note released Thursday, November 30, Austin ruled that any request for intervention by the National Guard, a military force, in Washington should now be presented to its executive secretariat, to avoid delays in decision-making. In the event of civil unrest, only the Minister will have the authority to make the decision.
“By clarifying and streamlining the intervention request process, (…) the ministry will be able to respond effectively, quickly and effectively”Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in announcing the changes.
A status apart
The Pentagon had been criticized for the sluggishness of the National Guard’s reaction to the assault on Congress on January 6: it had been deployed more than three hours late, because it had required the green light from the secretary of the Army, which itself had waited to obtain the agreement of the Minister of Defense.
The American capital, which is separate from the bordering states of Maryland and Virginia but which is not a state in its own right, has a special administrative status and local authorities do not have the authority to send the army, police or National Guard in the Congress grounds, which is a federal building. It is therefore the secretary of the land army who de facto heads the National Guard in the capital.
Called to the rescue when the Capitol police were overwhelmed by rioters, Pentagon officials later explained that they were reluctant to send uniformed and armed reservists to Congress for fear of making the situation worse.
Hundreds of National Guard reservists had been deployed to Washington during the major anti-racist protests the previous summer, following the death of George Floyd, and they had been criticized for their brutality, especially when a helicopter was overflown. a large artery in clods to disperse the demonstrators, cutting tree branches and causing a movement of panic.