The Oregonian: Leaving NW uncovered to protect VP Cheney

http://blog.oregonlive.com/oregonatwar/2010/04/leaving_nw_uncovered_to_protec.html


Leaving NW uncovered to protect VP Cheney

By Mike Francis, The Oregonian

An interesting detail emerged from an Army War College report written by Air National Guard Lt. Col. Gordon Niebergall last year. (A news account on the report was published over the weekend.by the Tampa Tribune's Ted Jackovics.)

The report concerns the United States' vulnerability to aerial threats and it focuses much attention to the period soon after the 9/11 attacks. And the newspaper account includes this:

An Oregon Air National Guard mobile radar squadron covering a gap west of Seattle relocated seven times to Wyoming to protect Vice President Dick Cheney and his family.

Sure enough, a 2003 copy of the Oregon Sentinel,* a National Guard publication, mentions this work, although it doesn't mention that a swath of the Northwest was left unprotected because the radar squadron was relocated.

So, while the vice president vacationed in the "Grand Teton National Park region," he was protected. Those living in Oregon and Washington, however, were not.