GIs come up short on armor, answers

http://www.suntimes.com/output/marin/cst-edt-carol101.html
GIs come up short on armor, answers
December 10, 2004

BY CAROL MARIN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Oh, great. Someone is now going to "sit down" with Spec. Thomas Wilson to, in the inimitable words of Donald Rumsfeld, "find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know."


Recommendation to Rumsfeld: go to Google on your computer and punch in two words, "Iraq" and "armor" and start reading the 472,000 results. Many of them speak specifically to a shortage of both vehicle and body armor for our troops. And the dates on some of those articles? They reach back for well over a year.

Wilson's questions clearly resonated with his fellow soldiers. There were 2,300 of them crammed into an air hangar, and many clapped and cheered. That discombobulated Rumsfeld who, like a cranky professor before an unruly class, sought to silence them saying, "Now, settle down, settle down." And then he dared to plead old age. "Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning, and I'm gathering my thoughts here."

"Wilson should be given a medal and promoted," said the congressman by cellphone Thursday. "That showed real cojones. Leaders don't need to hear what they want to hear, they need to hear what they need to hear."

The outrage is that we went into Iraq unprepared and unwilling to answer the most basic of questions: What will it cost? What is the timetable? What is the exit strategy?