Should the military lead disaster relief efforts?

Amid the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina, U.S. military officials were responsible for getting much of the recovery effort going. In the buildup and aftermath of Hurricane Rita, again, these military officials are being praised for their well-coordinated plans.

This has left some government officials with the opinion that the U.S. armed forces should take a more active role in responding to future disasters.

Retired Army Col. Jack Jacobs, an MSNBC analyst, joined MSNBC's Amy Robach to discuss the idea on Monday, noting that while the military is very qualified to handle disaster relief, there are several hurdles that would have to be cleared before they could take over completely.

"(In a disaster situation) there are basically three major tasks that have to be accomplished. The first is search and rescue; the second is the distribution of essential supplies, like food, water, temporary shelter, ice, medicine and so on; the third is controlling the aftermath," Jacobs said.

While noting that the armed forces are "very very good" at the first two tasks, Jacobs broke down the problems the military would have with controlling the aftermath, which he said "requires a great deal of coordination between the civilian authorities and the military."

"That may include enforcing the law, and that's a very very touchy subject because of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (a law passed after the Civil War that prohibits the military from acting as a law enforcement body) and there is a great deal of reluctance on the part of both military and civilian leaders to get active military people in there to do the kinds of things that are absolutely necessary to control crowds and enforce the law," Jacobs said.

"Most people do not want the military involved in that. They're going to have to solve that problem before we get the military involved full scale in situations like we've seen over the last couple of weeks," he noted.

In addition, the way the U.S. forces are spread all over the globe would create additional difficulties should the military be charged with leading disaster recovery.

"The problem is that we've got a lot of people over in Iraq and other places. Not a lot of them are in the states and furthermore, it would require a great deal of planning and coordination," he said. "Now a lot of the planning is already done. There is a command already set up to do this kind of stuff - the Northern Command - so it would just take agreement on the fine points in order to make it happen."

Some of those points include a clear vision of who is in charge, Jacobs stressed.

"One of the things you have to do when employing any kind of military force is to make sure there is unity of command. It would mean therefore that the active duty military would take control," he said. "Northern Command would be the command there on the ground and here's the tough part - the National Guard would have to work for Northern Command - which means that the governors would have to give up their National Guards to work for Northern Command and the National Guard would have to be federalized."

MSNBC Live with Amy Robach and Randy Meier can be seen weekdays from 9 a.m.-Noon.

MORE FROM MSNBC LIVE

MSNBC Live Section Front

Timeline of tragedy 2005: Looking back at the year in terror Analyzing post-election violence in Iraq Recipes for impromptu entertaining Political roundtable: Bush, Iraq, 2006 and more Analyst says attack may be 'warning sign' Protecting your kids from online predators MSNBC Live Section Front   Add MSNBC Live headlines to your news reader: