Iraq disrupts tornado recovery effort

Reuters


Overland Park, Kansas: A shortage of trucks, helicopters and other equipment - all sent to the war in Iraq - has hampered recovery in a US town obliterated by a tornado, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius said on Monday.

"There is no doubt at all that this will slow down and hamper the recovery," Sebelius, a Democrat, told Reuters in Kansas, where officials said the statewide death toll had risen to 12 on Monday.

Huge handicap

"Not having this equipment in place all over the state is a huge handicap," Sebelius said.

The tornado that devastated Greensburg, 175 km west of Wichita, started a weekend of violent weather in Kansas, a state in the heart of the United States also known as "Tornado Alley."

"We're getting pounded in Kansas. We have the need for National Guard in two different parts of our state now. This is really going to be a problem."

Sebelius and other Democratic governors earlier this year assailed the Bush administration for the strains they said the war had placed on their states' National Guardsmen, frequently mobilised for state emergencies.

Adverse impact

On Monday, anti-war groups, including the National Security Network and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq cited the shortage of equipment to deal with the Kansas disaster as the latest example of what they see as the war's detrimental impact on domestic security.