- (Reuters) - Gov. Brian Schweitzer has touched off a political
fight with Montana Republicans after calling for the return of National
Guard troops serving in Iraq to help out in what many fear will be a record-setting
wildfire season.
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- Mr. Schweitzer, a newly elected Democrat, infuriated
Republican lawmakers who see his request as a way to criticize the Bush
administration over Iraq.
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- "He's figured out how to use the wildfire season
to protest the Iraq war," said Bob Keenan, the state Senate Republican
leader. "It's an antiwar statement and condemnation of Bush's actions."
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- The governor and his supporters deny those accusations
in a growing political battle that comes as weather experts say a seven-year
drought and a severely reduced snowpack could lead to a devastating summer
of wildfires.
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- They also worry that limited resources stretched
thinner by the National Guard's service overseas could make it hard to
combat the kind of huge blazes that engulfed the state in 2000, when some
2,400 wildfires burned nearly 950,000 acres of mostly public land.
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- "Everything right now is pointing to the possibility
of a large and damaging fire season," said Bruce Thoricht, meteorologist
with the federal Northern Rockies Coordination Center in Missoula.
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- Governor Schweitzer said Montana would disproportionately
suffer the pain of proposed cuts in the federal budget, with money allocated
for firefighting cut in half.
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- As fire season approaches, about 1,500 of Montana's
3,500 National Guard troops have been deployed on federal active duty,
said a Montana Guard spokesman, Maj. Scott Smith.
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- A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Mike Milord, said
in an e-mail message that deals with neighboring states would provide for
more troops during emergencies this summer.
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- The bulk of the Guard's helicopters - critical in
shuttling fire crews and equipment to blazes - are unavailable, either
because they are in Iraq or their aviation officers are absent.
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