Rumsfeld's comment on armored vehicle production. Proof he's full of crap.

So, Rumsfeld says that it's not physically possible for the United States (after 3 years "at war" in the Middle East) to produce enough properly armored vechicles. He claims the most we can do is 400 per month.

So, to prove he is full of complete crap, I looked up our tank production in World War 2. It's safe to say that we didn't have all that much time for "preparation" for that war either... and probably much less time than in Iraq.

Note that this was 60 years ago, and automotive production has come a long way since then. We *should* be able to produce 10x the amount of vehicles than at that time.

Here's some stats of Armored Vehicle production rates during WW2

1942-
Light Tanks: 10674
Medium Tanks: 15720
----------
Total: 26394 (roughly 2200 tanks per month)

1943-
Light Tanks: 9024
Medium Tanks: 28158
----------
Total: 37182

Folks, that's almost 3100 tanks per month in 1943. Even if you count ONLY the light tanks, you come up with around 750 per month. You'd think that we'd be able to at least get NEAR that amount of armored vehicles for Iraq, especially considering how many hundreds of billions of dollars we're spending on the war. Oh wait, I forgot to deduct the 80% that Haliburton is pocketing (no proof of that, just a hunch) :-)

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_tank_production_during_World_War_II

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aMGdbQCSwiRg&refer=home
"Armor Holdings Inc., the sole supplier of protective plates for the Humvee military vehicles used in Iraq, said it could increase output by as much as 22 percent per month with no investment and is awaiting an order from the Army. ..."

"Jacksonville, Florida-based Armor Holdings last month told the Army it could add armor to as many as 550 of the trucks a month, up from 450 vehicles now, Robert Mecredy, president of the company's aerospace and defense group said in a telephone interview today."

``If they ordered more trucks, we'd build more trucks,'' Woodward said. ``We're not close to capacity. It might take some time to ramp up but we can do it.''

Woodward declined to provide exact details on production capacity.

The main reason there isn't enough armor is because the military has underestimated its own needs, said Meghan Keck, spokeswoman for Senator Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat. Bayh wrote a letter to Rumsfeld in October calling for a more accurate estimate of Humvee needs.

That's truth enough for me... coming straight from the horse's mouth (as opposed to the ass's mouth)

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1210armor10.html

"We've been telling the Pentagon for months that we have the capacity to double our production," said former U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, a consultant for ArmorWorks of Tempe.

they contacted the company that makes the armor for the Army. They said they were not running near capacity. When asked why they aren't, they replied that nobody asked them to.

So it appears the government didn't respond to earlier complaints about un armored vehicles. That makes me angry.

Recruitment numbers should be sinking to new lows.

drafty in here.

to service your house though!

hard to find.

You know, more jobs. We have the workforce and the facilities to build all that the war machine needs for their oil wars.

Remember the Viet Nam war? Everybody had a job. Industrial production was #1 in the world.

Why dont they, at the very least, build things that our troops need here in the US?

But Noooooooooo!!!