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Charges of poor planning for war revived
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-10 20:22
Critics of the war in Iraq seized on charges that U.S. troops there
don't have enough armored vehicles as another example of poor planning by the
Pentagon.
President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tried Thursday to
tamp down the firestorm, which was ignited a day earlier when an Iraq-bound
soldier publicly complained to Rumsfeld that the Army wasn't properly armoring
vehicles for the campaign.
Traveling in India, Rumsfeld said he expects the Army to do its best to
resolve the problem. In Washington, Bush said the soldier's concerns "are being
addressed and that is — we expect our troops to have the best possible
equipment."
Close to three-quarters of the Humvees in the Iraq war theater now have
upgraded armor protection, but many larger trucks and tractor-trailer rigs do
not, according to congressional figures.
Military officials said armoring Humvees has been the top priority
because they are used to patrol areas where attacks are likely. The heavy
haulers, meanwhile, usually travel convoy routes that are more frequently swept
for guerillas and bombs.
Critics questioned why the Pentagon has been unable to send enough
armored equipment 21 months into the war. They said war planners had too rosy a
picture of how the campaign would unfold and so didn't think so many troops and
so much armor would be needed for so long.
"This is about faulty analysis and a failed strategy," said Rep. Ellen
Tauscher, a California Democrat who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.
"We've never had enough troops on the ground since the fall of Saddam Hussein's
government to deal with the insurgency because we didn't expect one."
Loren Thompson, a defense industry analyst with the Lexington Institute
think tank, agreed.
"We have pretty much miscalculated every step along the way — why we
went, how we should do it, what we needed, what support we would have, how long
it would last — we pretty much got it all wrong," he said.
The war was meant to be fought at rapid speed by a limited-size force
with international help to disarm Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass
destruction. Instead, no weapons were found, the international community largely
refused to participate and officials have been forced to increase the size of
the force there, now going up to 150,000 troops.
There was far too little advanced body armor and were too few armored
vehicles to deal with what the Pentagon has since acknowledged is a far stronger
and longer insurgency than expected. Officials say more is being manufactured as
fast as possible.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Congress had given the Bush administration
all of the defense spending it had requested. Why then, he asked in a letter to
Rumsfeld, were soldiers combing landfills for scrap metal to protect themselves?
"This administration has received every dollar they have asked for from
Congress," Durbin said in his Chicago office Thursday. "So, the money has been
there."
Retired Maj. Gen. Nash, an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations,
agreed that the issue is part of a continuing theme.
"All of this fuss — whether it be (extended deployments) or having
sufficient armor — all of this is a continuation of the issue of poor planning
... lack of understanding of the consequences of invading Iraq," he said.
In a rare public airing of grievances, disgruntled soldiers in Kuwait
preparing to go into Iraq complained to Rumsfeld on Wednesday about long
deployments and a lack of armored vehicles and other equipment.
"You go to war with the Army you have," Rumsfeld replied, "not the Army
you might want or wish to have."
The guardsman who questioned Rumsfeld on the vehicle armor, Spc. Thomas
Wilson, had consulted earlier with a Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter who
is embedded with the 278th Regimental Combat Team.
The reporter, Edward Lee Pitts, said he had worked with guardsmen after being
told reporters would not be allowed to ask Rumsfeld any questions, Pitts wrote
in an e-mail to co-workers sent Wednesday.
Military officials said Thursday they were working hard to upgrade the armor
on Army vehicles in Iraq, with nearly three-fourths of the Humvees in the
theater now completed.
Of more than 9,100 heavy military haulers in Iraq, Afghanistan and
nearby countries, just over 1,100 have received upgraded protection, according
to figures provided by the House Armed Services Committee. Armor add-on kits are
in production for many of the rest of these vehicles.
By comparison, the military has decided it needs almost 22,000 armored
Humvees in the war area. It has 15,334; an additional 4,400 await armor add-ons
and the rest have not been delivered to the region.
Those Humvees are being built at the rate of 450 a month. The company
armoring them, Armor Holdings Inc., said Thursday it could increase production
by 50 to 100 vehicles a month.
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