Life is too short to be wasted on lies.
The Secretary of Defense is directly lying to his soldiers on issues of front-line life and death. Tell me again why he's not one of the departing cabinet members?
Uh oh, looks like Rummy's stepped in it this time. He should have said he didn't know, and he'd get back to the soldier on that question.
I don't get what is going on here. The Rock Island Arsenal in Rock Island, IL if fully capable of making the armor for the Humvee's but have not been asked to.
I disagree with Senator Dick Durbin about everything politically, but he wrote a letter to Rumsfeld stating that the RI Arsenal is ready, willing and able to make the needed armor. That is a good thing. Politics aside, I hope to see production increases and that the troops get whatever they need.
Owl_Eagle
"You know, I'm going to start thanking
the woman who cleans the restroom in
the building I work in. I'm going to start
thinking of her as a human being"
Humvee is a jeep replacement.......how many jeeps have been armored up over the past wars ? Zip, nada , none ! Our gun jeeps (M151's) had a pedistal mounted M60 and a passenger mounted M60. Now one can say oh yeah well we road into battle on horseback back when but that doesn't make the issue of not enough hardened humvess any better....I agree....but !
We're trying to replace tactics with a false sense of security IMO. Polidiots need to let our folks engage and eliminate the threat vs existing in a hardened facility or vehicle among the threat.
A hardened humvee will not stop an IED or even the old PG-2 series of RPG's much less the PG7 series and it's improvements over the years. We're attempting to run a gauntlet on a daily basis . Destroy the gauntlet. If troops are attacked every day on a standard resupply route then counter ambush ops need to be increased along with snipers moved into the areas to eliminate those planting IED's or civilians moving with any weapon other than a handgun for personal protection.
I am and will always be of the opinion that any modern military conflict should be over in less that 96 hours. We need to kick ass, break all the infastructure or power, water, communications and sewage. Blow the bridges, airfields and ports then leave. Walk away at that point. Let other communist/terrorist /socialist regimes clean up their own mess.
If they attack America or Americans again we'll be back and will whack em again and again and not play nation building for years at great cost to americans over a decade or so.
America payed a dear price on 9-11 and doesn't need to keep paying. Make our enemies pay......until we get medevil on them and theirs we subject ourselves to such long term misery and loss of our loved ones. Thats my rant on the matter, right or wrong it's just my opinion.
Stay safe !
Yes, it is. The military budget is huge, but limited. They need a lot of things and what they end up acquiring on trade-off is based on military effectiveness. The reason for that is that the military must be able to accomplish their mission or they will be out of a job.
$70,000.00 a pop for armor? I'm in the wrong business.
Rumsfeld was talking about adding armor to the vehicles the military already has not the new vehicles coming from the manufacturers. There was a general on c-span yesterday telling and showing the reporters in Kuwait that there would not be any vehicles going into Iraq that was not armor plated.
Would Bush and Rummy lie?????? You bet your sweet bippy that did.
defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20041209-1765.html
Presser from Iraq yesterday.
Cute, but typical LM article. A Demorat Senator gets to provide his unsubstantiated propaganda, then the spokesman from AM General gets to share a few facts at the end. Even some FReepers are falling for this crap. And that's after the most obvious bias demonstrated in the 2004 election!
Rumsfeld should be Donefeld.