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Home Front: Politix
Rumsfeld under fire for 'hillbilly armour'
2004-12-12
The row over America's failure to send enough military vehicles to Iraq took a new twist yesterday when the company that manufactures them said it could deliver 1,200 more a year, but has had no request from the Pentagon. Two days earlier, Donald Rumsfeld, was bluntly confronted by an Iraq-bound National Guardsman at what was meant to be a pep rally with the Defence Secretary at a US staging base in Kuwait. Instead, Mr Rumsfeld was hit by a barrage of pointed questions, first about the extended tours of duty driving down the morale of service personnel in Iraq, then over the lack of properly armoured Humvees to protect them from the roadside bombs that are the insurgents' weapon of choice.

Hours after President George Bush reiterated that soldiers in Iraq would get everything they needed, Congress released a report showing that only 6,000 of the near-20,000 Humvees in service in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait were fully protected. The House Armed Services Committee said most of the transport trucks that carried fuel, food and ammunition to dangerous parts of Iraq were unarmoured. That shortcoming has been seized on the guerrillas who have killed more than 1,000 US soldiers and marines since Mr Bush prematurely declared an end to the conflict in May, 2003. Thousands more have been maimed and wounded.
Bush didn't declare an end to the conflict in May, 2003, prematurely or maturely. He pronounced that part of the mission accomplished. I love watching propaganda memes evolve. I'd also point out that there's no army in the world that has a fully armored inventory, and add that the thrust is toward lighter, more mobile vehicles, like the Humvee. And changing the weight that the vehicles lug around also changes fuel consumption, lubrication requirements, parts wear lives, and probably a few dozen other things that aren't occurring to me off the top of my head. Money's got to be allocated to cover those things, too. Armoring everything, to include POL trucks, the cook truck, and the Colonel's jeep, is a pretty significant — not to mention expensive — move.
A spokesman for Armor Holdings, which makes the fully protected Humvees, said: "We have always said, 'Tell us how much you want and we'll build them'." The company had even proposed setting up new assembly lines to produce more, he added. Armor Holdings makes 450 such vehicles a month, but the spokesman said they could easily turn out 550. The cost of an extra 100 Humvees a month, it adds, would be $150m (£78m) a year. The Pentagon's budget for fiscal 2005 is $400bn, with $150bn of extra spending for Iraq. But the wider complaint is that the Pentagon has still not fully adjusted to the changed nature of the war in Iraq. Mr Rumsfeld insisted the military was "breaking its neck" to get enough fully armoured vehicles, and that "it's a matter of physics, not money". But critics say the problem runs deeper, the latest manifestation of a mindset that began before the war when the Pentagon's civilian leadership refused to heed military commanders who said "several hundred thousand" troops would be needed. The present US force is 138,000, soon to be 150,000.
What would we ever do without critics to tell us what we should have done?
Posted by:Fred

#3  hear that a lot from so many in the service, d'ya Andrea? I support your sending hygiene items, very thoughtful
thx
Frank
Posted by: Frank G   2004-12-12 9:44:42 PM  

#2  Fred:

I hear this from so many in the service- it is the same old tune being played - I think all we can do is supportthose who are defending our country at this time- this is what I call American good sense. Our soldier's are over there fighting w/o proper clothing i.e. sweat socks, hygiene item's. If we can't take care of our soldier's personal needs- do you think the equipment will be appropriate to suit the needs??

The answer is obvious*_LOL.

Andrea Jackson

Posted by: ANdrea   2004-12-12 8:54:37 PM  

#1  LOL! From The Independent... from who or what, they don't specify. Perhaps from common sense or good taste or, and this one rings true, a combination we could call good sense, heh.

The #1 spectator / backseat driver / worthless wanker / onanistic sport on the planet is telling the US what it should do - usually because of its status as "superpower". Of course, if we were so stupid as to listen to any of these feckless fools, we would not be a"super" anything - we'd have squandered our future for a pocketfull of socialist fuckwit programs...

No thanks, world. We'll muddle along with what brought us here: American Good Sense (mostly, heh). Piss off, now, we have things to do.
Posted by: .com   2004-12-12 7:57:44 PM  

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