Napolitano blasts program to send border agents to Iraq

Gov. Janet Napolitano wants the head of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop recruiting his officers to go to Iraq.

In a letter today to Ralph Basham, the governor said it is impossible for him to uphold his commitment to the residents of the state to secure the border "while you are siphoning Border Patrol agents from their critical domestic security mission.''

She told Basham he should "terminate this misguided recruitment program immediately.''

Napolitano also chided him for not mentioning the recruitment program when he met with her last week, even though he had sent a letter to all his officers and agents a full month beforehand urging them to volunteer for six-month stints in Iraq, offering a 70 percent salary bonus.

Napolitano did not see that letter until Wednesday when she got a copy from Capitol Media Services.

"This new information is particularly troubling in light of our recent discussions about the pressing need for more manpower along our border with Mexico and triggers in the Senate bill,” she said.

One of those "triggers,'' Napolitano said, involves the point at which Congress believes that there are finally enough Border Patrol officers to secure the border. Only then would provisions about guest workers take effect.

Napolitano said that trigger – originally 18,000 agents – now has been raised to 20,000 agents. There are currently only about 13,000 Border Patrol officers.

"And 18,000 was going to take to the end of '08 to reach in any event, yet we're still recruiting from the same pool of people to go to Iraq,” Napolitano said. “To me that is, that is self-contradictory. That is not good for Arizona. It's not good for securing the border. It ought to stop.''

The news of the Border Patrol recruitment comes as the National Guard is beginning to reduce the number of soldiers it placed along the border in 2006 as part of "Operation Jumpstart.'' That program was designed to provide some immediate support while the Border Patrol hired and trained new officers.

National Guard Capt. Kristine Mumm said the 2,400 soldiers deployed there ultimately will be pared down to about 1,200.

At the same time, though, the number of new Border Patrol agents added in the Tucson sector is just 178. Similar figures were not immediately available for the Yuma sector, which covers not just southwest Arizona but also part of California.

William Anthony, a spokesman Customs and Border Protection, said Basham had not yet seen Napolitano's letter, but he suggested that she might be overreacting.

Anthony said only 22 officers are deployed at any one time, "not all of them taken from the same place.''

He also said the U.S. military has provided far more help to the Border Patrol than the limited number of Border Patrol officers going to Iraq.