President Obama signed an executive order Thursday authorizing the deployment of the National Guard to help combat Ebola in West Africa.
“I am authorizing the secretary of defense and the secretary of homeland security to order the selected reserve and certain members of the individual ready reserve to active duty to augment the active forces in support of Operation United Assistance, providing humanitarian assistance and consequence management related to the Ebola virus disease outbreak in the West Africa region,” Obama wrote in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
“The authorities that have been invoked will ensure the Department of Defense can properly sustain the military operations required in this effort,” he added.
The Pentagon has already said that up to 4,000 military personnel could be deployed to West Africa to fight a disease that has already claimed more than 4,000 lives there. The National Guard would augment such efforts.
The announcement comes as the Obama administration attempts to convince the American public it is limiting the possibility of an Ebola outbreak on U.S. soil. The White House has argued that the most effective way to stop Ebola is to cut it off at the source — West Africa.
Obama administration officials have used such reasoning to resist a travel ban on passengers from West Africa, saying such a move would actually impair American efforts to treat victims. Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday acknowledged that it would at least consider a travel ban.
