Boston Globe: US stance on armor disputed (Rummy LIED To Troops)

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WASHINGTON -- Despite Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's assertion that the military is outfitting Humvees with armor as quickly as possible, the company providing the vehicles said it has been waiting since September for approval from the Pentagon to increase monthly production by as many as 100 of the all-terrain vehicles, intended to protect against roadside bombs in Iraq.

Army officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged yesterday that they have not approved new purchase orders for armored trucks, despite the company's readiness to produce more. They said the Pentagon has been debating how many more armored Humvees are needed.

Rumsfeld, questioned by soldiers in Kuwait on Wednesday who said they have had to pick through landfills for scrap metal to boost vehicle protection, said the Army was working as quickly at it could to get armored Humvees to the front. It is "a matter of physics, not a matter of money," Rumsfeld said, adding that the Army was "breaking its neck." President Bush yesterday reiterated that "the concerns expressed are being addressed."

But executives at Armor Holdings in Jacksonville, Fla., as well as Army officials and members of Congress, said Rumsfeld's assertion that the protective equipment is being provided as quickly as possible is not true and added the company has been waiting for more purchase orders.

"We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month," Robert Mecredy, head of Armor Holdings' aerospace and defense unit, said in a statement. The company is producing about 450 armored Humvees per month, up from 50 in late 2003, when a sudden surge of attacks in Iraq exposed a lack of protective armor.

The company says that by February it could be producing as many as 550 fully armored Humvees per month -- with armor plates on the sides, front, rear, top, and bottom -- if given the go-ahead. The company estimated it would cost the military about $150 million a year to pay for the additional 100 vehicles per month.

The company said it also told the Army it could add new production lines and turn out even more vehicles.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/12/10/us_stance_on_armor_disputed/

the dollar is more important than people to these assholes.

after all, how many bucks did those poor grunts throw Bush and Cheney's way? They don't count. Only the CEO rip off artists do. The point of this war was not liberation, it was enrichment of the few at the expense of everyone else, which is the mantra of the Bush Administration.

I wonder if the urban assault vehichile H2 provides more protection than the military version?

I wonder what the safety standards are for transporting security items from the GAP, JC Banks, Macy's etc?

I wonder which version has the better GPS?

I wonder.....hmmmmm?

It is a aluminum shell shaped vaguely like a Hummer on a Ford Explorer frame. It's for people who want to play army while not actually driving a real army vehicle.

is spot on. The H2 is a Hum Vee Wanna Bee.

"You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want"

Would someone bitch slap this asshole... we didn't have to go to war at all, let alone with an army that was not properly equipped!

have died or been maimed because the Bush Junta didn't care?

All along these chickenhawk cowards have been betraying the troops.

According to Military.Com

Lack Of Armor Claims Troops

Twenty percent of the U.S. troops killed in Iraq might have lived had there been more armored, heavier vehicles available to them...

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_armor_042704,00.html

This doesn't have anything to do with incompetence. These ass holes don't care. They aren't the ones being shot at. Their response shows they still don't get it. Instead of treating this as a problem that needs to be solved they are once again treating it as a PR problem.

There are thousands of steel fabricators in this country that could begin tomorrow to fabricate the armor plates if they were contracted. There is simply no excuse for not having armor more than two years into this war. The claim that it can't be done faster is bull.

Finally the excuse that no one could have foreseen we would be fighting a resistance movement two years after the fall of Saddam is outrageous and preposterous. Only a totally deluded fool wouldn't have expected this would be a long term fight.

These pricks have tried to fight this war on the cheap preferring to spend lives instead of money. This is a deliberate choice and explodes the myth that this administration and the conservatives in this country support the troops. They don't care and thousands of dead and gravely wounded troops whose lives have been sacrificed or destroyed are the result. :mad:

Rumsfeld doesn't give a fuck about these guys. There was a good documentary on Frontline about the conflict between the civilian and the military at the DOD and Rumsfeld views them all from generals on down as his shoe shine boys.

Bush's response to a reporter's question about it:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/12/20041209-7.html

And if I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country, I'd want to ask the Secretary of Defense the same question, and that is, are we getting the best we can get us?

Of course, that wasn't the question. The real question was:

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?"

So you see the reframing is already in process. It's not about soldiers being killed if they don't become muck raking dumpster divers, it's about "are we getting the best we can get us".

;)

Boy, Rove&Co sure make a lot of work for us. They get to use the corporate media to frame everything they way they want the public to see it, then we have to undo the brainwashing on an individual basis... is it possible to keep up with these lizards?

We're coming from behind on this score.




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Here's the letter I sent National Petroleum Radio:
>>>

On this morning's brief discussion between Scott Simon and Daniel Schorr about Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's response to a soldier questioning 'why they had to look for armor in junkyards,' I was outraged to hear Scott Simon interrupt Daniel Schorr's criticism of Rumsfeld's deceptive response by disputing what Schorr had just said and then deflecting discussion towards supporting both the innocence and competence of Rumsfeld's prosecution of this illegal war.
--------------------------------------------
Schorr said "Rumsfeld's statement 'we go to war with the army we have, not the one we want' made no sense at all since this wasn't in response to Pearl Harbor but instead a war that had been anticipated and planned on since atleast January, 2001."

Simon jumped in and said "no, actually we haven't established that. Let's talk about their finding conditions on the ground to not be what they expected when they got there..."
---------------------------------------------
Please tell Mr. Simon and the other so-called journalists at NPR that intent and planning to invade Iraq was a priority for George W. Bush (and the Project for a New American Century neo-cons who espouse a new American Global Empire and make up his administration) LONG before it was marketed to the public through people like Judith Miller at the New York Times and Scott Simon at NPR.

This fact has been confirmed by George W. Bush's own words in interviews before the coup of 2000, 'wacky conspiracy theorists' like former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and many many former administration and intelligence service insiders who are no longer in on this massive blood-for-oil scam perpetrated with the help of media disinformation from NPR, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC, and the rest.
(CNN: O'Neill Claims Iraq Plans Before 9/11)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/

The blood of more than 100,000 Iraqis and tens of thousands of young American soldiers is on your hands, too.

I won't support NPR financially and I'll encourage everyone I know to abstain from paying for your propaganda.

(Maybe you can all get jobs at the Iraqi Ministry of Disinformation. I'm sure you can all afford to pay for yor own body armor, unlike our troops.)

It just gets blown up anyway, and caskets are cheaper than limb replacements and a lifetime of physical therapy.

They don't even have to pay for a bugle player now that they've got the electronic ones, and Rummy uses a mimeograph on the bereavement letters, so that's a saving too.

All round, the Pentagon's better off without all that costly armor.

See, you just have to think like a cheap labor Republican to figure out their strategies. It's simple.

i guess that sounds fair. these are real modern military vehicles. we should be spending it to help our kids.

whether or not rummy knew about this, whether or not he just winged the answer, the production should be accelerated. i'm getting sick of the finger-pointing. rummy is senile, no doubt, but that shouldn't slow us down in doing the right thing. let's keep our kids alive and bring them home asap.

The following document explains the costs and the allocations in August.

http://www.armorholdings.com/new/news/2004/08-30_ibd-forceprotection.pdf

"junior agreed that the soldiers' concerns were legitimate. "If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country, I'd want to ask the secretary of defense the same question, and that is, are we getting the best we can get us?" Bush told reporters in the Oval Office."

This is worse than professional wrestling