Panel Blasts 'Appalling' US Terror Readiness

The US is woefully under-prepared for a terrorist attack on home soil, according to a scathing report by an independent commission charged by Congress to recommend National Guard and Army Reserve policy. "It's totally unacceptable," the panel declared of American readiness in the event of such an attack." You couldn't move a Girl Scout unit with the kind of planning they're doing now."

The National Guard and Reserves are under-funded, under-trained and under-equipped, leaving "an appalling gap" that puts Americans at risk, the report concluded. Chief among the commission's 95 recommendations was making the Guard and Reserves into a permanent, integrated part of the US military ready to respond to a crisis. (More National Guard stories.)