Posted on 12/08/2004 7:48:33 PM PST by Former Military Chick
ARLINGTON, Va. — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was “not embarrassed” by tough questions from troops Wednesday about the lack of armored vehicles in Iraq and other issues, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
Rather, such tough questions are the norm for the secretary when he meets with troops, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told Pentagon reporters.
Rumsfeld received a very pointed question about the lack of armored vehicles in Iraq by Army Spc. Thomas Wilson during a “town meeting” at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on Wednesday.
“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?” asked Wilson, a member of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is composed mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, according to the Associated Press.
Di Rita said that after hearing a broadcast of the town hall meeting, he “called and spoke with” the deputy commanding general of U.S. forces in Kuwait, Maj. Gen. Gary Speer, to ask him about the armor issue.
Di Rita said that Speer was “not certain of the specific situation [Wilson] was referring to,” but that in general, it is the policy of U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq to load unarmored Humvees on flat-bed trucks — which themselves are not armored, Di Rita said — and “convoy them” into Iraq.
The armored Humvees, meanwhile, are driven by soldiers into Iraq from Kuwait, Di Rita said.
“The policy is that as units move into the theater … if [their vehicles] are not armored, they are convoyed in, not driven,” Di Rita said. And once in Iraq, unarmored Humvees “do not leave the base camp,” but are reserved for routine errands inside the base.
Furthermore, Di Rita said, since the Army first identified a need for more armored Humvees, in the fall of 2003, the service “has done just a superb job of turning around a component of industrial base that was doing different things” and turning the manufacturers to making both armored Humvees and armor kits for other vehicles.
At the time, Humvee makers were “producing something on order of 15 armored Humvees per month,” Di Rita said.
Today, that number is 450, he said, with $1.2 billion spent since August 2003 on armor and armored Humvees alone. As a result, “three out of four” Humvees now in Iraq are armored, he said.
Di Rita said that the fact that commanders did not anticipate the need for more armored vehicles in Iraq until well after the announced end of major combat operations did not reflect poor planning on the part of Pentagon leaders, as some critics have alleged.
“Combat planning is not a crystal ball; it’s not predictions,” Di Rita said. “It’s the ability to be flexible enough to change things as needed.”
Pressed for detail concerning the 278th Regimental Combat Team’s situation as it prepares to move into Iraq, Di Rita said that the unit is supposed to “fall in on existing armored Humvees” that are being left behind by a unit that is redeploying home.
Asked whether the recent announcement that more than 10,000 troops will be held in Iraq longer than expected in order to provide security for elections might cause a shortage of such “swapped out” vehicles, Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, the Joint Staff’s Deputy Director for Regional Operations, said that “commanders have on the ground … have adjusted their plans accordingly.”
“There is a tremendous flow going in of 450” Humvees each month, Rodriguez said. The commanders “have a plan to spread (the new vehicles) out evenly” among the troops.
Rodriguez said Wilson would not face informal or formal repercussions or disciplinary actions for his question to Rumsfeld.
“No, that doesn’t happen,” Rodriguez, who attended the news conference with Di Rita, said.
“We don’t take action (against troops) for asking questions,” Rodriguez said. “That soldier will keep doing the job he [was] doing.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story from Camp Buehring, Kuwait.
I hope all the ones complaining about troop protection on other threads come here and read this!
THE UNARMORED HUMVEES DO NOT LEAVE THE BASES!
ONLY ARMORED HUMVEES ARE DRIVEN OFF BASE!
Do you know if this townhall meeting will be on TV? Thanks. I saw some of Rummy's answers to that young soldier and I thought his anwers were spot on? Eric Hogue(sp?)sit in for Hugh Hewitt today and he referenced Rummy's remarks. And two or three former military called in and one who works on putting a special type of armor on military vehicles called in and confirmed in one form or another what Rummy said.Cool!
Just a prediction. The facts presented in this article won't be seen outside of the Stars and Stripes and FreeRepublic. And all the Freepers demanding Rumsfeld's head because "nothing is being done" will pretend this thread doesn't exist.
Some of us already understand that. The others post at DU.
What the NYT DIDN'T REPORT:
Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary. My question is more logistical. We’ve had troops in Iraq for coming up on three years and we’ve always staged here out of Kuwait. Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromise ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles and why don’t we have those resources readily available to us? [Applause]
SEC. RUMSFELD: I missed the first part of your question. And could you repeat it for me?
Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary. Our soldiers have been fighting in Iraq for coming up on three years. A lot of us are getting ready to move north relatively soon. Our vehicles are not armored. We’re digging pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that’s already been shot up, dropped, busted, picking the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles to take into combat. We do not have proper armament vehicles to carry with us north.
SEC. RUMSFELD: I talked to the General coming out here about the pace at which the vehicles are being armored. They have been brought from all over the world, wherever they’re not needed, to a place here where they are needed. I’m told that they are being – the Army is – I think it’s something like 400 a month are being done. And it’s essentially a matter of physics. It isn’t a matter of money. It isn’t a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It’s a matter of production and capability of doing it.
As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe – it’s a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.
I can assure you that General Schoomaker and the leadership in the Army and certainly General Whitcomb are sensitive to the fact that not every vehicle has the degree of armor that would be desirable for it to have, but that they’re working at it at a good clip. It’s interesting, I’ve talked a great deal about this with a team of people who’ve been working on it hard at the Pentagon. And if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up. And you can go down and, the vehicle, the goal we have is to have as many of those vehicles as is humanly possible with the appropriate level of armor available for the troops. And that is what the Army has been working on.
And General Whitcomb, is there anything you’d want to add to that?
GEN. WHITCOMB: Nothing. [Laughter] Mr. Secretary, I’d be happy to. That is a focus on what we do here in Kuwait and what is done up in the theater, both in Iraq and also in Afghanistan. As the secretary has said, it’s not a matter of money or desire; it is a matter of the logistics of being able to produce it. The 699th, the team that we’ve got here in Kuwait has done [Cheers] a tremendous effort to take that steel that they have and cut it, prefab it and put it on vehicles. But there is nobody from the president on down that is not aware that this is a challenge for us and this is a desire for us to accomplish.
SEC. RUMSFELD: The other day, after there was a big threat alert in Washington, D.C. in connection with the elections, as I recall, I looked outside the Pentagon and there were six or eight up-armored humvees. They’re not there anymore. [Cheers] [Applause] They’re en route out here, I can assure you. Next. Way in the back. Yes.
Q: Staff Sergeant Kobeck (sp) with Charlie Company 171 Aviation. With the recent success of the elections in Afghan, what message will you take back to the States to the people that say we couldn’t get it done?
I hope they do as well. But, some will only take what they want when the watch, we know better.
Well, we can take the article to our own papers. I have sent email of Stars and Stripes articles to our local papers, they printed them. Do they look for them, I doubt it, but, if we take a proactive stance to the situation we might just make a small dent into what folks are reading.
A: We'll tell them that the media will continue to do its damndest to distort the truth and present less than 1/2 of the story. Some in America already know that. The rest launch into fits of defeatist hysterics with every "new" revelation that we are already in the process of solving. In the meantime, you fine American heroes will continue serving your country in the finest tradition of American fighting men. And the whiners will eventually move on to bitch about something else. Next question...
It's more fair to question why they are there and not guarding our borders. Leave wars to the active forces, and then don't whine about equipment problems. They are a lower-tier army by definition, and their constantly asking "why do we suck compared to full-time soldiers?" is just not productive.
(Absolutely no disrepect meant to anyone if my language was frank... Everyone's sacrifice and service is equally honorable.)
What a great idea!
Wow.
Thanks for posting this. This is a totally different take on the answer Rumsfield gave than I have heard ALL day.
If the media can't show this.....then f..k them! The cut they had on Rumsfield's response really made him look totally stupid and not responsive. I am forwarding this to all my friends.
"A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow"-- G.S. Patton
"Flexibility: It's the key to Air Power."-- old Air Force Axiom
"You innovate, you adapt, you overcome."-- "Gunny" Highway (Clint Eastwood) "Heartbreak Ridge"
So it has always been with the troops whether they are on the line or not and shall always be!
Q: Staff Sergeant Kobeck (sp) with Charlie Company 171 Aviation. With the recent success of the elections in Afghan, what message will you take back to the States to the people that say we couldn’t get it done?
ELECTIONS IN AFGHANISTAN??? When did that happen?!!?
I wonder how many taglines are Rummy's?
... don't forget tiny little North Korea.
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