Of course, reports have noted that the U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. “The Pentagon’s plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of 1 October 2008.
All of this complements Bush’s presidential directive NSPD 51, or PDD51, the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, created and signed on 4 May 2007. A president, now Obama, may execute procedures for continuity of the federal government in the event of a “catastrophic emergency,” in other words, it allows the president to declare martial law in the United States without consulting Congress. It should be noted that Congress and the American people are not allowed to see the Continuity Annexes of the directive. On July 2007 U.S. Representative and Homeland Security Committee member Peter DeFazio made an official request to examine the documents but was refused under “national security concerns.”
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