| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Arbusto Mosquito" |
| Date: |
01 Nov 2004 08:26:09 AM |
| Object: |
GIs Lack Armor, Radios, Bullets |
GIs Lack Armor, Radios, Bullets:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/31/60minutes/main652491.shtml
(CBS) Two weeks ago, a group of Army reservists in Iraq refused a direct
order to go on a dangerous operation to re-supply another unit with jet fuel.
Without helicopter gunships to escort them over a treacherous stretch of
highway, and lacking armored vehicles, soldiers from the 343rd
Quartermaster Company called it a suicide mission.
The Army called it an isolated incident, a temporary breakdown in discipline,
and an investigation is underway.
But the 343rd isn't the first outfit to be put in harm's way without proper
equipment, and commanders in Iraq acknowledged that the unit's concerns
were legitimate, even if their mutiny was not.
With a $400 billion defense budget you might think U.S. troops have
everything they need to fight the war, but that's not always the case.
Correspondent Steve Kroft talks to a general, soldiers in Iraq, and their
families at home about a lack of armored vehicles, field radios, night
vision goggles, and even ammunition - especially for the National Guard and
reserve units that now make up more than 40 percent of U.S. troops.
In this report, Kroft also talks to Sen. John McCain about how pork-barrel
politics have shortchanged troops on the ground.
Every couple of weeks Karen Preston gets a telephone call from her son
Ryan who is serving in Iraq with the Oregon National Guard.
But Karen Preston has been worrying a lot ever since last summer when
Ryan returned home on leave and showed her these photos of the
unarmored vehicles his unit was using
for convoy duty in Iraq.
Lacking the proper steel plating to protect soldiers from enemy mines
and rocket propelled grenades, they had been jerry-rigged with
plywood and sandbags.
"They were called cardboard coffins," Preston says.
There have been more than 9,000 U.S. casualties in Iraq so far –
more than 8,100 wounded and 1,100 killed. Nearly half of those
casualties are the result of roadside bombs, known as improvised
explosive devices or IEDs in military jargon. Yet the U.S. military still
lacks thousands of fully armored vehicles that could save American
lives.
Specialist Ronald Pepin, who serves in Baghdad with the New York
National Guard, says, "They have no ground plating. So if you hit
something underneath you, then it's going to kill the whole crew, you
know? And that's just something you have to live with."
Staff Sgt. Sean Davis from the Oregon National Guard was critically
wounded last June when his unarmored Humvee hit an IED outside
of Baghdad. He suffered shrapnel wounds, burns, and was unable to
walk for six weeks.
Davis said his Humvee was armored with plywood, sandbags, and
armor salvaged from old Iraqi tanks.
He considers himself lucky that he wasn't killed in the blast. His
friend and fellow guardsman Eric McKinley, who was riding in the
same vehicle, wasn't so fortunate. The 24-year-old Army specialist
died of his wounds. His father Tom said his son was supposed to
have been discharged from the Oregon National Guard a few months
before his death, but was held over because of the war.
McKinley says his son would have stood a lot better chance of
surviving had his vehicle been fully armored.
"Our troops need to be protected over there to the best ability that
we can protect them and it's not being done," he says.
The Department of Defense denied a 60 Minutes request for an
on-camera interview to explain the situation. But responding to a
written question about vehicles traveling dangerous routes in Iraq
being armored with plywood and sandbags, the Army told us, "As
long as the Army has a single vehicle without armor, we expect that
our soldiers will continue to find ways to increase their level of
protection."
60 Minutes went to a man more familiar with the problems facing
the Oregon National Guard than anyone else – its commanding
general, Ray Byrne. General Byrne was somewhat reluctant to talk
when 60 Minutes showed him pictures of his men's Humvees and
trucks, armored with plywood and sandbags.
"If you have nothing then that's better than nothing. The question
becomes then again when – when are they going to receive the full up
armored Humvees? And I don't have that answer," says Gen. Byrne.
"It distresses me greatly that they do not have the equipment. I don't
have control over it. The soldiers don't have control over it. The
question becomes, 'When is it going to be available? When is it going
to be available? When will they have it?'"
There are still no good answers to those questions. Most of the
vehicles in Iraq arrived there without armor plating, because the
Pentagon war planners didn't anticipate a long, bloody insurgency.
But 18 months after President Bush declared an end of major
combat, the Pentagon is still struggling to provide the equipment
needed to fight the war.
Oregon Congresswoman Darlene Hooley, a Democrat whose
district includes Gen. Byrne's National Guard, complained to the
secretary of defense. She says she thinks the vehicles are not fully
armored yet because military planners didn't anticipate an insurgency.
"We didn't have enough armored vehicles," she says. "They weren't
manufactured."
Congress has appropriated additional money for armored trucks and
Humvees, over $800 million in the current defense bill.
The Army told 60 Minutes they will have produced 8,100
fully-armored Humvees by March.
However, production is lagging behind the urgent need, and the
Pentagon's interim solution is shipping so-called "add-on armor" kits
to Iraq, where they are being bolted on to thousands of vehicles.
But most of those add-ons don't protect the bottom of the vehicle,
leaving them vulnerable to an explosive device.
And it isn't the only equipment problem facing soldiers in Iraq.
Oregon guardsman Sean Davis told us that his unit was short
ammunition and night vision goggles, and lacked radios to
communicate with each other.
He says guardsman were using walkie-talkies that they or their
families purchased from a sporting goods or similar store. "And
anybody can pick up those signals, you know," he says. "And we
don't have the radios that we need."
Gen. Byrne says stories about families in Oregon having to go out
and buy for their sons and daughters radio equipment, body armor,
GPS gear, computers and night vision goggles because they weren't
being issued are true.
He said some Guard units are also using Vietnam era M-16 assault
rifles, which he calls adequate for state duty but not acceptable for
duty in Iraq. There is also a bullet shortage for training, he says.
It bothers him, but "there's nothing I can do about it," he says.
"If I was making the decisions, I would readjust," he says. "The
soldier on the ground should be a focus. When that's taken care of
you can take care of other stuff."
The Army acknowledged to 60 Minutes that there is a shortage of
radios in Iraq and a shortage of bullets for training, and says both are
in the process of being remedied. There have also been problems
with maintenance and replacement parts for critical equipment like
Abrams tanks, Bradley personnel carriers and Black Hawk
helicopters.
Winslow Wheeler, a long time Capitol Hill staffer who spent years
writing and reviewing defense appropriations bills, thinks he knows
one reason why those shortages exist, after looking at the current
Defense budget. Army accounts that pay for training, maintenance
and repairs are being raided by Congress to pay for pork-barrel
spending.
Wheeler says $2.8 billion that was earmarked for operations and
maintenance to support U.S. troops has been used to "pay the pork
bill."
Wheeler, who has written a book called "The Wastrels of Defense,"
says congressmen routinely hide billions of dollars in pet projects in
the defense bill.
And buried in the back of this one, Wheeler found a biathlon jogging
track in Alaska, a brown tree snake eradication program in Hawaii, a
parade ground maintenance contract for a military base that closed
years ago, and money for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial
celebration.
By law, these projects can't be cut, so Pentagon bookkeepers will
have to dip into operations and maintenance accounts to pay for
them.
"They do all kinds of things that adds up to: 'We're basically eating
our own young to support the war,'" he says.
According to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a member of the Armed
Services Committee who speaks out against pork-barrel spending,
there is a total of $8.9 billion of pork in this year's defense bill, which
would go a long way toward upgrading all the equipment used by the
National Guard.
"I don't think that this war has truly come home to the Congress of
the United States," McCain says. "This is the first time in history that
we've cut taxes during a war. So I think that a lot of members of
Congress feel that this is just sort of a business-as-usual situation."
"The least sexy items are the mundane - food, repair items,
maintenance – there's no big contract there," says McCain. "And so
there's a tendency that those mundane but vital aspects of war
fighting are cut and routinely underfunded."
It is not a comforting thought for families with loved ones in Iraq,
who lack armored vehicles, radios or things they need to stay alive.
It's on Karen Preston's mind every time she talks to her son.
"He's very pro-military, as am I," she says. "I just want them to have
the best equipment."
Some armored vehicles have now been shipped to her son's unit, but
without protection on the bottom of the vehicle, an insurgent's
explosive is just as deadly.
Specialist Pepin on the New York Guard says, "It's kind of like an
act of faith. When you get in your vehicle, you just hope, you know.
Say a little prayer before you go out."
This weekend, Acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee wrote to
60 Minutes saying, "The Army has made great strides in improving
the capabilities of all units deploying to Iraq as the nature of the
conflict has changed." He noted the president approved spending
$840 million to improve the armor on Humvees in Iraq.
_____
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| User: "David Fabian" |
|
| Title: Re: GIs Lack Armor, Radios, Bullets |
01 Nov 2004 09:17:25 AM |
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"Arbusto Mosquito" <BushLite@fatcat.gov> wrote in message news:10ochs1hn596v6e@corp.supernews.com...
GIs Lack Armor, Radios, Bullets:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/31/60minutes/main652491.shtml
(CBS) Two weeks ago, a group of Army reservists in Iraq refused a direct
order to go on a dangerous operation to re-supply another unit with jet fuel.
Without helicopter gunships to escort them over a treacherous stretch of
highway, and lacking armored vehicles, soldiers from the 343rd
Quartermaster Company called it a suicide mission.
The Army called it an isolated incident, a temporary breakdown in discipline,
and an investigation is underway.
But the 343rd isn't the first outfit to be put in harm's way without proper
equipment, and commanders in Iraq acknowledged that the unit's concerns
were legitimate, even if their mutiny was not.
Seems like they are expected to be *concerned* about going on a suicide
mission, but are not expected to *disobey orders* to do so.
With a $400 billion defense budget you might think U.S. troops have
everything they need to fight the war, but that's not always the case.
Right -- especially considering what the CEOs of the-no-bid defense
contractors pay themselves, and what they probably must pay in bribes,
in order to get "no-bid" contracts.
He says guardsman were using walkie-talkies that they or their
families purchased from a sporting goods or similar store. "And
anybody can pick up those signals, you know," he says. "And we
don't have the radios that we need."
Soldiers communicating on unencrypted lines. Sounds like suicide to me...
Gen. Byrne says stories about families in Oregon having to go out
and buy for their sons and daughters radio equipment, body armor,
GPS gear, computers and night vision goggles because they weren't
being issued are true.
While oil barons and war-profiteers rake in billions...
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