The List Grows......

[sspadowsky]

Since Rumsfeld's bird-flipping Q&A with the troops, some surprising developments have taken place. While it's no surprise that Democrats are in an uproar over Rummy's remarks, I find the following rather intriguing:

-Norman Schwarzkopf pubilcly stated he was angered by Rumsfeld's remarks
-John McCain has publicly stated that he has "no confidence" in Rumsfeld
-Republican Senator Susan Collins (ME) has publicly criticized Rumsfeld's remarks
-Trent Lott (!) has said he wants to see Rumsfeld replaced

Does anyone predict that this will snowball? And do any of you think a stubborn, cantankerous old fuck like Rumsfeld will ever bow to public sentiment, especially when Bush still professes complete faith in Rummy's performance?

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Collins won't mean much to anybody, even though she sits on some crucial committees. Some might just call her a RINO....

[kellychaos]

Let's first of all understand that this war is not at all what what the U.S. military is designed for ... i.e. it is not conventional in the sense of what we thought that we'd face with most "industrialized countries" ... i.e. "unconventional". For the past several years the military has adopted the doctrine of "bomb the shit of them and then go in with the clean up crew". Unfortunately, you can't occupy and secure a country and enforce the borders against insurgents with a "clean-up crew". To be brief, they tried to do the war on the cheap. The lack of amored transport is a clear sign that they did not know what type of enemy they were going up against. The problem is that they have no way of fighting this particular type of war with the particular type of army that we're trying to present at this time. This type of guerilla war is nothing new, in a general sense. Hell, the very reason we won OUR very independence is based on guerialla warfare ... and not the gentlemenly, formal type of war that the British were used to ... that and the $ and support of the French ... a recurring theme in warfare. So, there you have it. A cause that's funded by outside forces that are able to permeate the boundaries, guerilla warfare, outside financial support, ect. In light of the fact that we underestimated our enemies and, consequently, poorly planned this war, the outcome to date is not suprising.

P.S. My analogy our founding fathers is, at best, general. I, of course, realize the lack of humanity in the current conflict.

[Jeanette X]

Update:http://www.tennessean.com/nation-world/archives/04/12/62929024.shtml?Element_ID=62929024

Unit's vehicles all had armor within day of soldier's query



_____Today's Top Stories_____

By STEWART M. POWELL
Hearst Newspapers


Generals say refitting was already in works

WASHINGTON — Within 24 hours after a soldier from Nashville challenged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about armor shortages in Iraq, protective armor had been added to every vehicle in the soldier's unit, senior Army officers said yesterday.

Army Maj. Gen. Stephen Speakes and Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, senior members of the Army's combat systems development and acquisition team at the Pentagon, said protective armor plates were added to the last 20 vehicles of the Tennessee-based 278th Regimental Combat Team's 830 vehicles shortly after the exchange with Rumsfeld.

The generals said it was part of routine, pre-deployment preparations in Kuwait before the unit proceeded into Iraq.

''When the question was asked, 20 vehicles remained to be up-armored at that point,'' Speakes said at a Pentagon briefing. ''We completed those 20 vehicles in the next day. ... In other words, we completed all the armoring within 24 hours of the time the question was asked.''

Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, 31, questioned Rumsfeld about armor shortages during a question-and-answer session in Kuwait last Wednesday, provoking roars of approval from about 2,300 military and civilian personnel attending the meeting. Wilson posed a question drafted with help from a reporter traveling with the unit, Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts.

''Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?'' asked Wilson, an airplane mechanic with the Tennessee Army National Guard unit. ''We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north.''

After asking Wilson to repeat the question, Rumsfeld replied: ''You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have.''

Wilson's question and Rumsfeld's answer quickly reached the White House, where President Bush defended the GI's right to ask the pointed question but insisted that the Pentagon was working to address shortages.

Speakes said Wilson may not have known that the Army was working under ''an existing program'' to add armor to the last of the unit's vehicles when he questioned Rumsfeld.

In response to the clamor provoked by Wilson's question, the Army on Friday revised a production contract with Armor Holdings Inc. to boost production of factory-built armored Humvees from 450 per month to 550 per month at its plant in Cincinnati.

Roughly half of the more than 1,300 U.S. troops killed and more than 9,750 wounded since March 19, 2003, have been victims of roadside bombs and ambush attacks on vehicles, many operating without fully encased, factory-installed armor and protective glass.

By the time Wilson's unit headed into Iraq, Speakes said, it had 252 vehicles with bolt-on armor plate produced as $7,000-$11,000 add-on kits in the United States and shipped to Kuwait for installation by soldiers.

An additional 459 vehicles had less protective, locally fabricated armor plate installed by GIs in Kuwait — armor known to GIs as ''hillbilly armor.'' Wilson's question referred to that type of ad hoc armor.

The unit picked up an additional 119 armored Humvees upon arrival in Iraq that had been left behind by departing combat units.

The Pentagon is spending $4.1 billion over the next year to add armor to vehicles in Iraq. Sorenson said 35,000 of them need armored protection, of which 29,000 have been funded by Congress.

[sspadowsky]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska:

Excerpted from www.voanews.com:

Speaking on CNN's Late Edition program, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Republican ally of President Bush, voiced displeasure with Mr. Rumsfeld's answer.

"That soldier and those men and women [in uniform] deserved a far better answer from their secretary of defense than a flippant comment. I wonder what the parents of the men and women over there [in Iraq], sons and daughters who are fighting, I do not think that they appreciated that answer [from Mr. Rumsfeld]," said Mr. Hagel.

Senator Hagel said that, under Mr. Rumsfeld's leadership of the Pentagon, the United States failed to send enough troops to Iraq. He said the defense secretary had dismissed generals who argued that greater troop strength would be required to secure Iraq after Saddam Hussein's removal.

[mburbank]

Criticism alone, no matter how harsh or from whom, will not be enough to Oust Rumsfeld. Someone needs to drive a stake through his black heart. Then his head will need to be removed. His mouth will need to be filled with garlic, and the lips sown shut. The remains must be sprinkled liberally with holly water and burried under flowing water.

[Baalzamon]

You forgot to expose the pieces to sunlight for a tenday!

we are all doomed you fool!

[GAsux]

Kelly,
I believe you are wrong. I believe the war planners knew EXACTLY what they were up against. When Gen. Franks asked the developers to put together their plan, they weren't hampered by lack of understanding. They were hampered by time.

No one is suprised by the fact that they are operating primarily in urban environments. There may have been disagreements at to when it would happen and who they'd be fighting, but one way or another everyone planning knew that in order to occupy the country it was going to require a heavy amount of urban warfare.

The problem is, you can't transform an organization overnight. In a sense, Rummy was partly right. You have to use what you have. Where he's wrong is that they didn't have to go then. Knowing the type of combat they would face, they could have delayed the start of the war until those pieces were in place.

Instead they choose the need to act quickly over the need to have all the required tools. You are now seeing the result.

The problems of combat in Iraq are no shock to anyone with have a brain. They simply chose to press on in spite of the lack of propoer training and equipment. It was a case of "act now, think later".

[kellychaos]

I agree that most soldiers bristle at the mention of "urban warfare" as it is the most difficult to fight and our army is not really equipped to handle it for an extended period of time. It is simply not how army doctrine has structured to fight and to make it so would take a massive overhauling ... i.e. money. While it's true that the logistics of taking over a couple hundred thousand troops is a nightmare that takes time, I don't think that Rumsfeld had much support from the military brass in doing things on the cheap and in a hurry. I think that the military brass both knew what was needed and considered the threat low. It's all about Rumsfeld's "my way or the highway" intimidating style of leadership. His own advisors were afraid to speak against him. Maybe this is too much of a "conspiracy theory" type thing but doesn't it seem like the Iraqi military kind of laid down for this war in anticipation of an urban setting in which terrorist can thrive? They knew they couldn't beat us "head to head" but maybe ...