Meehan crashes news conference on Humvee funding

Lowell Sun ^ | Thursday, April 29, 2004 | IAN BISHOP

[Ranger]

The army's stated system-wide need is now 12,000 up armored humvees, though about 4500 are immediately targeted for Iraq-Afghanistan. This is according to army testimony earlier this month. Its a startling figure.

[Ranger]

Along your line of thinking I don't understand why some of the 700 M113s in Kuwait aren't released to Iraq now for immediate use. I know there is an immediate spare-parts problem, but it just seems to be a useful expedient given that other options aren't available at present.

[Southack]

Because the M113 can't handle a single RPG hit, and moves so slow that it's an easy target on patrol??

[Cannoneer No. 4]

according to army testimony earlier this month

I'm from Missouri.

[Ranger]

Thought you were from Georgia?

[Ranger]

This was from a recent (last week some time) Stars & Stripes. It from the house armed services committee meeting last week,

"The Army’s budget request includes $156.3 million to procure 818 up-armored Humvees, not the 2,431 that Army officials told Congress they would need in an “unfunded requirements” list that House lawmakers requested after the budget was released.

The unfunded requirements document says that in 2005 the Army will need an additional 3,132 up-armored Humvees, as well as at least 1,400 armor upgrade kits, that together total $837 million, HASC spokesman Harald Stavenas confirmed Friday.

“At a time when you’re in a war fight, and you’ve got these IEDs blowing up and we’re taking fairly substantial casualties, why would force protection, such as up-armor, ever be an ‘unfunded requirement?’” Hunter said. “That seems to me to be a major defect in the system.”

[Lancey Howard]

No matter what the Army does, somebody is the scumbag Democrats are going to say they are wrong.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Show me

[Brimack34]

They should have built the Military up in the 90's this should not be a problem now. Clitoon was AWOL and now our fine military is paying for it.

[R. Scott]

To think there was a time when we rode around in open jeeps, ¾ and 2 ½ ton trucks. It was easy to spot the bad guys and return fire. I think we might have been more aware too because we knew we were vulnerable.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Armored HMMWV's are not the answer

[R. Scott]

Hard to believe, ain't it?

[Cannoneer No. 4]

The administration and congress need to propose and pass a supplemental appropriation for DoD now. It needs to be much larger than this narrow issue of armor requires. The problem is across the board. Perhaps you should step away from your paranoid partisanship and ask what we should be doing as an American.

Even paranoids have enemies. As for partisanship, no Republican politician is using me as a prop for his media circuses.

[Ranger]

Here are the options:

1. Do nothing until after the election. Massive crisis quietly erupts in DoD, third rotation goes in without repaired equipment, maintenance, updated night vision, etc. This is current Rumsfeld/White House plan as outlined in February.

2. Go through the immediate process of pushing both parties, administration and congress, for a large supplemental appropriation this quarter. Get the funding the DoD needs so that they don't poor boy the grunts and troops in the third and fourth quarters. It hurts a bit, but the matter is discussed in the past tense after July.

3. Vascillate for another quarter, but troop levels and intensity holds steady through the June 30 deadline and costs continue to exceed the budget by billions, collapsing in a public display in third calendar quarter. Funding problem prevents third rotation's proper re-armament and its a PR mess for all concerned, not to mention a disservice to our troops.

My preference is to options 2, push now for the money, because its better for the troops on the battlefield and the country at large.

Which option do you choose or do you have another? To duck the question is to take the chicken's way out. What do you recommend?

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Does Meehan give you your talking points or do you give him his? To duck the question is to take the chicken's way out.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Does Meehan give you your talking points or do you give him his? To duck the question is to take the chicken's way out.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Lay down with dogs, wake up with fleas. If you are going to closely associate yourself with some of the most notorious leftists in American politics, be prepared to be judged by the company you keep.

I am not in a position to do anything about funding. If the chain of command hasn't asked for something to be funded, I'm inclined to believe they have their reasons. I was only on active duty for 10 years and do not feel qualified to second-guess. You obviously suffer no such reticence.

For somebody who claims not to be a Kerry fan you sure hang around a lot of people who are. You were present at and on record as agreeing with Teddy Kennedy's "Iraq Is Bush's Vietnam" speech. You could have written John Kerry's April 26 press release.

You're no Bush fan.

You're the one who involved me in this. You played me. I think you were played, too, then, but now I think you know full well how you are being used.

[Ranger]

I believe party politics should end at the gates of Arlington National Cemetery. Evidently you do not and to me that makes all the difference.

You know full well there is a funding crisis on the horizon that must be addressed now, not later. Yet you imply you are powerless yet you are not.

Let's clear up a few points though. First, I was not at Kennedy's April speech. I was however at a January one which coincided with a visit to a double amputee from Iraq I met there and my first return visit with my wife to my son's grave. I believe you will also find a press account where I did not endorse his speech. Second, your ping is the first I've seen of Kerry's 4/26 announcement which quotes at length, General Ellis, US Army Commander in Iraq according to the account, on the army's current equipment deficiencies in Iraq. A fact he articulates at length and which you deny because you are so afraid that it might be heard by the public and impact the elections; troops be damned. Ellis is right and had the gut to put it out plainly when most of the generals are pretending not to notice. Third, I've voted for Bush, I've campaigned for Bush, but he has all but lost my support based on the White House budget manipulatons which occurred in February regarding military appropriatons (or lack there of) in the FY-05 budget. It became evident in February and March that the military budget is being manipulated at the expense of our troops needs to push funds months past the election. As a result troops in the third rotation are going to go in short of critical maintenance and supply matters. But your too scared or paranoid to act on what you know is true. Lives hang in the balance now and we cannot look to the party politicians to resolve this issue. Neither party has adequately supported our troops though they run good advertisements to the contrary.

I am asking you sir to put your considerable talents to work, as you see fit, on getting the troops the tools they need.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

General Ellis commands nothing in Iraq.