Rumsfeld's response was as pathetic as his planning.
I expected such attitude fom a Clinton style Sec. Def.
Check out Rush Limbaugh's web site. The whole question/answer series was a set-up by the reporter. He was not allowed to directly ask questions to Rumsfeld, so he coached soldiers on the questions to ask, then asked the sergeant to call on his coached soldiers. The whole thing was a set-up to embarrass Rumsfeld.
Times are changing and the military has only had 4 years to recover from Clinton's "reforms". It's true the main problem is aquisition and that depends on what type of unit you are in.
Still combat units should get priority based on the fact that they purposefully go into dangerous areas.
Yep, and who was in charge during most of that time?
Still talking about this? WTF?
All diplomas,rank and whatever credentials aside, this author is out to trash our President and the administration in time of war. He and the sidewalk superintendents, full of their own self importance, posting agreement with him here are aiding and abetting our enemy with Hate America diatribe.
You can make the battlefield linear again simply by expelling or executing all the civilians in the areas occupied by our forces.
The real question is whether or not we are willing to do so.
I.e. - Baghdad would be a safe zone if there were no Iraqi's in it.
'But the fact that there is no longer a front line also means there aren't any more "rear" areas where support units can operate safely.'
This is not a new problem - there weren't any "front lines" in Vietnam either.
As a former right door gunner on an M-151 Jeep, I can appreciate the lack of armor. Our units in Vietnam used field expedients to modify 2 1/2 ton and 5 ton trucks into gun trucks for convoy defense and M-151s were fitted with a mount for an M-60 machine gun. I think our troops deserve the best that we can give them but what we have is the result of budget trade offs over the years.
With all due respect to women, they just can't physically handle the same combat roles (with no safe rear area, all roles/MOS's become combat roles) as the majority of men, and are an undue distraction as well. I know from experience, having served in a combat MOS in the Marine Corps, and observed female Marines from other MOS's.
Patriots, good women, smart women, many of them tough women... but most of them could not handle all of the physical demands of their jobs. This meant they were often a drag to the men in their units, and had a negative impact on the accomplishment of the mission. Men, being men, would stop and help them, or would end up doing their jobs for them often. Some would be overly protective and treat them like sisters, and some would try to hit on them. Many feared them and wanted nothing to do with them during the 90's (and maybe now as well?) because they had an inordinate amount of power in the form of crying "sexual harassment", whether true of not. Men hated the fact that many women were getting pregnent just to avoid a deployment they didn't want to go on. Who had to take their place? A male Marine.
I love women (including my mother, grandmother, wife, and daughter), but don't think they should be in the military, or at the very least, not in any theater of combat. If they must be in the military, then maybe they could serve only in non-combat roles and zones.
Since it is now common for reservists to go to the combat zone (and not fill in for active duty units here at home bases, as was the practice in the past), let the males go to combat, and the females fill in here at home. Still an important job, but not one where they will be in harms way, or be a distraction and hindrance to our male soldiers and Marines in combat.