Piece on right now. Soldier said they lined the floor with sand bags and plywood. They even yanked plating off of dead Iraqi tanks. Guard units using Vietnam-era M16s. Families sending over walkie-talkies, night vision goggles & bulletproof vests. Steve Kroft is talking to an Army muckety-muck who is absolutely speechless. He knows how fvcked up things are. Thank God GWB is doing his best to protect our troops.
I am an anti war Democrat, but I don't want to hear this. If we are going to send our kids into harm's way, then for God's sake, let's equip them. This is a horrible story.
Military has X number of HumVees. Certain HumVees are equipped to be faster, some to be more rugged. Some to be able to handle certain payload. Basically, you have differently configured vehicles. When the Army places an order for HumVees, they probably say, I only have THIS much money to buy vehicles with, but I need say, 1000. Much like the auto dealership that won't put $5000 rims on your car for free. Now who's fault is it MORE--that the military is not properly equipped? Democrats, or Republicans?
Did it ever occur to you that "60 Minutes" show should be followed by the statement: "I'M JOHN KERRY AND I APPROVED THIS MESSAGE" ? Hell... does CBS work directly for Democratic National Committee?
That's no excuse. All it speaks to is poor planning. The US military has a big freakin' budget. Tack on to that the amount Bush is spending on this war, and there is no reason why every single Hummer in Iraq shouldn't be armored. How you can defend this is a mystery to me. It's wrong no matter how you slice it.
We're not talking optional extras here. These are military vehicles. Adaquate protection is essential - if they're not protecting their occupants they're not functioning effectively. What's the point in buying a car that doesn't have a steering wheel? Given the US military budget and some of the things it's spent on, I'm going to hazard a guess that you could find a fair bit of money being used stuff less essential than basic protection for frontline troops. It's called budgeting for priorities.
The Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the House. So, obviously, it's the Dems' fault.
They've been putting sandbags in the lighter humvee variants since they were introducted. Almost 20 years now. That's nothing new. On the humvee controversy. The media is giving the impression that you can just slap some armor on any old humvee. I pretty sure this isn't the case. The 'up-armored' model is a variant the typical humvee. It's got a much heavier suspension to handle all the weight of that extra armor (2000 pounds), a pretty substantial re-fit. It's also a new design. It's not like they had the capability to make these things for years and suddenly decided they didn't need them. They were originally planned as part of the 21st century re-organization for the Army. The idea was to take a battalion of manuever soldiers away from the each combat bridages and replace it with a company sized force of these vehicles to act as extremely long range scouts. (lighter, faster, more lethal) They were never intended to replace the standard humvee.
That still doesn't excuse them from not using the armored vehicles for combat missions. It all comes back to poor planning.
You beat me to it. That is the pathetic thing about all of the Republicans blaming the democrats for all of the ills of the last four years. I can't help but picture Zell Miller worked up into a nice froth saying: "Humvees armed with what? Sand bags?"
The Humvee fiasco is only part of the problem. Shortages of radios, body armor, ammunition (??!!), and other basic necessities is an absolute crime. Halliburton gets to keep $3 billion in disputed fees, but we can't sufficiently arm our troops? Tell me again how Bush is a "champion" of the common soldier?
Although I have not worked personally on this project, several of my coworkers have placed a literal **********-load of time, effort, and money into the Humvee problem. Although my experience is on a "second-hand" basis, I have sat down and talked a lot with people on the project to help them with an outsiders analysis. Stopper4 is mostly correct in that you just can't throw armor on a Humvee and call it good. Armor is heavy -- sometimes up to 1-1.5 tons. Throwing that much weight onto an automobile that was not designed for it would completely destroy any type of suspension and would render the automobile difficult to drive, or completely undriveable. A good friend of mine works for a spring company out of Indiana and they are desperately trying to build springs that meet a heavier Humvee. Remember, it is one thing to build 3 or 4 springs; it is another to build 2,400. Also, speed is an issue. I would imagine that occupants would want to have the ability to haul SS out of a combat zone if needed. Just from a powerplant standpoint, a Humvee weighing 1.5 tons over normal would easily cut your top speed by 30 mph. Basically, these Humvees were not designed to go into combat. They were designed to be far away from the fighting and have the ability to run from danger over harsh terrain. Here is a nice little article from the IndyStar detailing some of the efforts in making the light Humvee safer. Humvee Lightweight Armor
60 hour work weeks for the two years. I haven't asked anybody, but I sure as hell hope they are getting straight time pay for those extra 20 hours of overtime.
YITBOS is right. The Humvee armor thing is normal DoD procurement and force structure proceedure. No one ever anticipated that the US military would be stretched to the point where EVERY unit and EVERY part of EVERY unit would essentially be in combat. The light humvees were designed to be the replacement for the old Jeeps. Ambulances, behind-the-lines transport and supply duties, etc. The problem goes to the long-range planning and force structuring of the military over the last 15 years or more. Basically, we have still been equipping, training and planning, for large force mechanized warfare. Against whom you might ask? All the military people will point to China, DPRK, Iran maybe and say that we have to be prepared to go toe-to-toe with them. Fine. But if the truth be told, over the last 20 year US land forces have been used primarilly in small, low-intensity confilcts (Grenada, Panama), "peacekeeping" (Bosnia post-Dayton, Somalia) and wars of occupation (Iraq2). In (especially) Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom... Aside: what ever happened to cool operational names? Overlord, Torch, Chromite, etc.? Operation Iraqi Freedom sounded lame in April 2003 and it downright sucks right now. ... we saw that our combined arms (dominance of air and land battlespace) forces just rolled right over the Iraqi Republican Guards, and those were their best units. Now, what do you think? Are the Chinese and Iranians closer to Iraq or closer to us in their ability to dominate the entire battlespace? In point of fact we need a larger contingent of our military trained and equipped to handle the kinds of things we saw in Somalia and are seeing in Iraq. The Stryker brigades are a start. But we need entire Divisional structures trained around low-intensity conflics, counter insurgency and security/peacekeeping.
Correction "WE'RE THE ADVERTISING SPEND AND WE APPROVED THIS MESSAGE" ? mate - how else do you think it works?
You DO realize though, that the reason some vehicles the military has are not armoured is because they were vehicles designed for a different purpose--namely speed and mobility.
Now? Republicans. In the early 90's, when Clinton slashed 70% of military spending, Democrats. So you Dems are REALLY bagging on Republicans for not spending enough on defense?!?!?! I thought your favorite Democrat pie chart was showing how evil we are as a nation to spend 1/3 of our budeget on military, while there are people going hungry right here in our own country!!! So which is it? Do you support military spending, or do you not? Or is it that, you wait for any Republican to make any decision, and you just attack that position whatever it is.
Excellent move of the goal posts my friend. The story, and the argument go to whether or not our military has the equipment it needs for the job it has to do. If it does not, then perhaps we shouldn't be dicking around in a country that didn't attack us. As to your little cat fight argument, many republicans -- including Dick Cheney -- supported military cuts after the cold war. I will certainly buy the argument that humvees were meant to fill the role of a jeep more than a tank. The question then arises, why do we still have such a need for fortified vehicles a year and a half after the end of major combat operations? Shouldn't our military be able to drive around much of the country in a friggin jeep without getting killed? Times have changed my friend. Trying to compare voting records on Defense from the early 90s to today's situation is no different than trying to harp on congressional voting records on defense in 1931 as evidence of weakness on December 8, 1941. This country has shown an ability to gear up for war in a hurry. The reason our troops don't have the proper equipment is related to planning not financing.
That doesn't appear to be the issue. If lightly-armoured vehicles were being used for their intended purpose, then the level of protection would be adaquate, as that is what they are designed for. The frontline troops there obviously feel that their basic equipment provides such inadaquate protection that they're reduced to salvaging scrap to fix the problem. That's pretty serious, and as noted in the opening post, the issue isn't limited to vehicles. It demonstrates a fairly poor understanding of the needs of troops with regard to basic equipment, which should be one of the number one priorities for any country in any war. With the size and scope of the US military budget, there's really no excuse to get something as basic and as vital as this wrong.