RUMSFELD SET UP; REPORTER PLANTED QUESTIONS WITH SOLDIER (DRUDGE SIREN)

RUMSFELD SET UP; REPORTER PLANTED QUESTIONS WITH SOLIDER
Thu Dec 09 2004 11:49:38 ET

Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts is embedded with the 278th Regimental Combat Team, now in Kuwait preparing to enter Iraq, and is filing articles for his newspaper. Pitts claims in a purported email that he coached soldiers to ask Defense Secretary Rumsfeld questions!

From: EDWARD LEE PITTS, Chattanooga Times Free Press military reporter
Sent: Wednesday, December 8, 2004 4:44 PM
To: Staffers

Subject: RE: Way to go

I just had one of my best days as a journalist today. As luck would have it, our journey North was delayed just long enough see I could attend a visit today here by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. I was told yesterday that only soldiers could ask questions so I brought two of them along with me as my escorts. Before hand we worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor their vehicles going into combat have. While waiting for the VIP, I went and found the Sgt. in charge of the microphone for the question and answer session and made sure he knew to get my guys out of the crowd.

So during the Q&A session, one of my guys was the second person called on. When he asked Rumsfeld why after two years here soldiers are still having to dig through trash bins to find rusted scrap metal and cracked ballistic windows for their Humvees, the place erupted in cheers so loud that Rumsfeld had to ask the guy to repeat his question. Then Rumsfeld answered something about it being "not a lack of desire or money but a logistics/physics problem." He said he recently saw about 8 of the special up-armored Humvees guarding Washington, DC, and he promised that they would no longer be used for that and that he would send them over here. Then he asked a three star general standing behind him, the commander of all ground forces here, to also answer the question. The general said it was a problem he is working on.

The great part was that after the event was over the throng of national media following Rumsfeld- The New York Times, AP, all the major networks -- swarmed to the two soldiers I brought from the unit I am embedded with. Out of the 1,000 or so troops at the event there were only a handful of guys from my unit b/c the rest were too busy prepping for our trip north. The national media asked if they were the guys with the armor problem and then stuck cameras in their faces. The NY Times reporter asked me to email him the stories I had already done on it, but I said he could search for them himself on the Internet and he better not steal any of my lines. I have been trying to get this story out for weeks- as soon as I foud out I would be on an unarmored truck- and my paper published two stories on it. But it felt good to hand it off to the national press. I believe lives are at stake with so many soldiers going across the border riding with scrap metal as protection. It may be to late for the unit I am with, but hopefully not for those who come after.

The press officer in charge of my regiment, the 278th, came up to me afterwords and asked if my story would be positive. I replied that I would write the truth. Then I pointed at the horde of national media pointing cameras and mics at the 278th guys and said he had bigger problems on his hands than the Chattanooga Times Free Press. This is what this job is all about - people need to know. The solider who asked the question said he felt good b/c he took his complaints to the top. When he got back to his unit most of the guys patted him on the back but a few of the officers were upset b/c they thought it would make them look bad. From what I understand this is all over the news back home.

Thanks,

Lee

EDWARD LEE PITTS FILED STORY ABOUT THE TROOPS BEFORE THE POW-WOW WITH RUMSFELD

Developing...

"I guess being faulted by the investigators is a fate worse than death?"

No but using sub-standard and comprimised materials when you KNOW you're not supposed to will in fact spped your demise.

Look there are local contractors hired by the military in Iraq making modifications to the Hummers. Maybe if these guys hadn't jumped the gun and gone throught their CHAIN OF COMMAND they could have not stirred all this up.

My objection is to bashing the soldier, and the LACK OF PRODUCTION in the USA. I blame the "kool-aid" drinkers for bashing the soldier, and I blame the GOP for striping the USA of it manufacturing base. I have been screaming like hell for many many years about so called "free trade". And my memory is that every damn trade deal was pushed hard by the GOP. And now we can't produce the armor the troops claim to need.

I am not bashing DoD or Rumfield or Bush. If this incident causes some to rethink "free trade" then great.

Specktour is a RINO whom I have despised for years. Judas Jeffords is a bum boy for the likes of Tom Daschle, whome he immediately bent over for when the GOP managed to glean a slim majority. In fact, Specktour would bend over for anyone he thought would vote for him. Their position is his position, satisfaction guaranteed. I hope I made myself clear without being graphic.

"Sheets" Byrd, regardless of your opinion of his segregationalist, Klannish beliefs, had it right on when he said said on the floor of the senate to trust him, China was going to screw us on this. I backed up his sentiment then and will back it up now, despite how offensive I find his other views. When a person is right, he's right. Period.

Byrd also voted AGAINST Kerry's pet project of ending the embargo against Viet Nam without the control of the Viet Nam Human Rights Act (which tied non-humanitarian aid to a provable improvement on Hanoi's human rights record). He was right on that one, too. I threw that in because I didn't know if you knew it or not.

ANYHOW, the "GOP" isn't the party that pushed PNTR. John Kerry pushed it, Tom Daschle pushed it, Bill Clinton pushed it...Democrat leaders pushed it, and you cite a coupla RINOS for and a coupla yellowdogs against? NONE of this has ANYTHING to do with the topic of this thread.

You're not very old are you REALLY?

Did you ever seen that 70s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Remember the last scene when pod-vegetative-human-replica Donald Sutherland points and screeches at a real person whose mind hasn't hasn't been taken over by pod-dom?

I most certainly do. That was a great scene. At first you didn't know if Donald Sutherland was pretending to be pod person for cover until of course he made that hideous pod screech when he spotted the last of the survivors.

It's funny you should bring this up. Last week on FR I mentioned Invasion of the Body Snatchers and “the pods” in reference to Bush's strong-arm tactics in influencing republican congressmen to drop the immigration reform provisions of the 911 bill.

The Pod People are taking over. Everything is fine now.

What's even more foolish in the post 9/11 world is Rummy's resistance to any further expansion of the Army.

They can try to tell people that tese new Brigade Units of Action give us more capability...but all they are doing is a shell game w/ the same amount of soldiers. What they need to do is to stand up the 24th I.D.(M), the 2nd Armored and the 7th I.D.(L) as full fledged divisions again. Permanently station one of them in Iraq similiar to what we've done in Korea.

If we continue with the same troop numbers we have now...we'll have to live with the fact that 51% of the combat power in the ENTIRE Army comes from the National Guard. In the post 9/11 WOT world...that's just not acceptable.

That worried soldier has reason to be worried. This isn't a game for him. Yes, the reporter made sure his guys got up to the mike, but the soldier is no child, he bought into the question, and the motive here was not an unpatriotic one. They want better armor. I for one, don't blame them a bit. And this is an American army, not the second best, the best. We have the means to send over the very best of support for those troops. The story that matters to the rest of the guys in that room is that their stuff will be there today.

Right on target. The reporter erred in helping to phrase questions and get his guy picked, that is flat out wrong. But he knew about the problems with the armor, and wanted to get that story out, I admire him for that, he just took the wrong approach. But this is not the real story. The real story is the troops - the entire crowd of troops errupted in applause at the question concerning the lack of armor - and that is absolute proof our troops think its a big issue that puts their lives at risk. But thats not good enough for some people here, they wan't to burn any messenger of bad news who speaks about any issue that might reflect somewhat badly against anyone in THIS adminsitration. If Clinton were president, however, the armor for the troops issue would be a FreeRepublic just cause. Sad.

Honey, my politics mean nothing. Though I've worked for the GOP for a couple of decades, I was registered as an indepentend until recently. I've been inside politics for a very long time. Your partisan argument is childish to me. PNTR was Bill Clinton's baby. I ask again: where were you when I was handing out petitions against PNTR? What were you doing? You never answered the question.

But undermining the troops in anyway you can is tratiorous.

Oh, speaking out against police actions is now considered traitorous. Let's look at the definition of treason again

1. Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.

Have I violated my allegiance toward my country? By dissenting against a political action? Good grief. Have I waged war against it or purposely acted to aid its enemies? Well beside the fact that our 'enemies' can apparently change with the changing of administrations, I have neither aided nor acted to aid the enemies of this nation of states. Disagreeing with an action made by the administration against another nation is in contrast with nationalism, not patriotism.

But carry on subject, rah-rah and all that jazz. I still support the troops but not the action with which they are involved. And it's for one simple reason. No matter what George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Fox News, or any other talking head 'conservative' will tell you to make you sleep all comfy and cozy at night with the flag wrapped around you, this whole thing is futile. Twenty years from now, thirty years from now, sometime in the future, some future President will be sending troops back there (that is if they ever leave) to continue the WOT. You can't fight against a people's that don't want us there and if we were to follow conservative values, we would understand that and leave them alone. Defend our borders, attack if attacked, but quit this 100 year campaign to 'spread democracy'

Do your arms ever get tired holding up that 5th Column?

Do you ever get tired of continually defending the ever changing definition of conservatism?

I believe this reporter is a patriot, and took extreme means to get knowldege of this deficit in our defense out to the MSM, to SecDef, and to the President. Who can doubt that he has the welfare of this Tennessee unit at heart?

BTW, I have to laugh at those calling Pitts an agent of the mainstream media. The Chattanooga Times Free Press is just about as red state as you can get. It is the antithesis of the New York Times.

But they didn't. You discredit yourself right off the bat.

Actually just watched it again on MSNBC. I know it's strange but being an actual conservative I get my news from more than just Fox. They played it again. And I was wrong. I would say more than a few hundred said 'Hoo-rah' and then started clapping. So yes, the soldier had support from the troops there. Wait a minute, they're questioning the 'official' line as well. Does that mean they don't support themselves?

What's more, it is terrible for morale to have a two-tier fighting force: one being the regular Army,preferred,privileged, and well-equipped; and the other being Guard and Reserve--who get the junk and the leftovers.

The entire military is composed of tiers. They exist within Special Operations Forces, within services, and within major units.

Some units are more 'high speed' than others, and if having better training and equipment is important to you, then you'll need to back that up with commitments. Go active, go airborne, volunteer for different MOSs, etc. Your life will be harder, but you'll be more ready for actual combat when the time comes.

If you want a part time job in an easy unit, where you don't have to train often, and won't be getting the newest gear, then expect to arrive in combat without the same level of training or equipment as the full timers.

There's simply no way to equip all units as well as the best equipped unit out there. Infantry squads aren't equipped half as well as a Special Forces ODA. As a soldier, you can either make due, make field expedients, move up the food chain to a better unit, or get out. That may sound harsh, but that's reality.

"I still support the troops but not the action with which they are involved."

Again as I said before...that's like saying you like football players and HATE the game of football. You can NOT support one without supporting the other.

"Twenty years from now, thirty years from now, sometime in the future, some future President will be sending troops back there (that is if they ever leave) to continue the WOT. You can't fight against a people's that don't want us there and if we were to follow"

And I'll be going back if I'm ordered to. Just like I went last year when I was ordered. The IRaqi people aren't the ones resisting us. It's all the foreign thugs coming in from and on the payroll of Iraq and Syria.

The Iraqi people WANT us there. They are thankful EVERYDAY that we rid them of Saddam. I guess you'd have known that had you BEEN THERE!

"And it's for one simple reason. No matter what George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Fox News, or any other talking head 'conservative' will tell you to make you sleep all comfy and cozy at night with the flag wrapped around you, this whole thing is futile."

I sleep well wrapped in the flag every night cause I'm out there pretecting that flag. It amazes me how you arm chair generals can make such insepid and obtuse comments about something you know nothing about and don't have the time nor the inclination to actually LEARN about.

You trying to tell me about what is REALLY going on in Iraq is like me trying to tell MacArthur what he did wrong with the Inchon Landings.

BTW, I have to laugh at those calling Pitts an agent of the mainstream media. The Chattanooga Times Free Press is just about as red state as you can get. It is the antithesis of the New York Times.

Yep, its that leftover election fervor here on freerepublic, burn any messenger that speaks against our Politicians. Yep, that Chattanooga guy just HAS to be a left wing liberal Kerry mouthpiece....

How silly and sad. When the troop asked Rummy the question about why they weren't getting armor, the whole crowd of troops applauded and whooped. As I stated earlier, if Clinton were Prez, the Amored vehicles for our troops would be a major FreeRepublic cause, and Freepers would be absolutely bashing the Secretary of Defense, the Miltary Leadership, and Clinton. But shhh...keep it quite...its Rummy and Bush......let a few troops die needlessly, our politics are at stake....

Well, I never agreed with the drawdown and the 'peace dividend' from the start, so we are in complete agreement. Why is it that every time our valiant military wins a war, they are rewarded with budget and manpower cuts? Making the job that much more difficult the next time around, of course. Granted, some of this is a tad bit of sour grapes, for I was caught up in the drawdown from 800k troops in the Army down to 487k troops, but not all.

Standing up the 24th Mech in brigade formation would be a damn good idea. The 7th light would be a good compliment to the 25th and 10th. We haven't had enough light infantry in a very long time. I'm not sure on the 2AD, but then, armor is always necessary. We never know what the next dust up will be like, and having 60 tons of armor around you is a good thing!

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