Failure To Plan = Planning To Fail | Ctr for American Progress

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from today's email briefing....


IRAQ
Failure To Plan = Planning To Fail

Eighteen months after President Bush declared major combat operations were over, soldiers, National Guardsmen and reservists lack essential equipment and armor to fight the war in Iraq. The U.S. Army announced Friday it would be increasing the production of armored Humvees for American troops in Iraq by 100 a month. The steps to boost production came "despite recent assertions from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that soldiers could not be supplied with safer vehicles because Pentagon officials could not procure them faster." Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) offered blistering criticism of the Secretary yesterday, saying, "I don't like the way he has done some things. I think they have been irresponsible. I don't like the way we went into Iraq. We didn't go into Iraq with enough troops. He's dismissed his general officers. He's dismissed all outside influence. He's dismissed outside counsel and advice. And he's dismissed a lot of inside counsel and advice from men and women who have been in military uniforms for 25 and 30 years." Rumsfeld's "irresponsible" policies have led to the lethal equipment shortage. As a result, the country's citizen soldiers are paying the price.

FAILURE TO PLAN MEANS LACK OF EQUIPMENT: Before the war, the White House was anxious to garner support from the American people for the invasion. As a result, the administration concentrated solely on a best-case scenario in which U.S. troops would be greeted by a grateful population and the conflict would end quickly with little expense or effort. As a result, the Army today doesn't have the equipment it needs. The Pentagon, for example, originally said it would need 235 armored Humvees in Iraq. In reality, it needs 8,105, or thirty-five times the amount it predicted before the war.

RELUCTANCE TO PAY WORSENS SHORTAGE: President Bush last week told the families of men and women stationed in Iraq, "we're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones.'' However, a front-page story in today's Washington Post tells a different story. At the Red River Army Depot, the facility which repairs Humvees, hundreds of damaged vehicles which are desperately needed in Iraq are just sitting around waiting to be repaired. According to officials at the repair facility, this isn't the fault of the depot. Instead, "the real bottleneck may lie in Washington." Said one manager, "We'd like to produce them all today so the soldiers have their equipment. But…the reality is, there isn't the funding."

NATIONAL GUARD PAYING THE PRICE: One major complaint from National Guard troops in the field has been that they have worse training and equipment than their active-duty counterparts. A new report by USA Today shows the tragic consequences: "In a reversal of trends from past wars, part-time soldiers in the Army National Guard are about one-third more likely to be killed in Iraq than full-time active-duty soldiers serving there." The statistics bear this out: the active army has seen one death for every 402 soldiers deployed. The Army Guard, however, sees "one fatality for every 264 soldiers who have served, or about a 35% higher death rate." This is a dramatic shift from the past, when the part-time citizen's army was less at risk. In the first Gulf War, for example, the Army Guard suffered no fatalities.

SOLDIERS PUNISHED FOR EQUIPMENT SHORTAGE: The Washington Post reports, "At a time when some U.S. troops in Iraq are complaining they have to scrounge for equipment," six reservists from Ohio are being court-martialed for taking abandoned Army vehicles for parts they needed to carry out their own mission in Iraq. The reservists, unable to deliver fuel in the vehicles they had been provided, "took two tractor-trailers and stripped parts from a five-ton truck that had been abandoned in Kuwait by units that had already moved into Iraq." In return, they've been "charged with theft, destruction of Army property." The military maintains that, after delivering the fuel, the reservists should have tracked down the trucks' original unit and returned the vehicles.

PLATOON REFUSES, LIVES: In October, members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company were "disciplined and demoted" for refusing to carry out a highly risky mission with their inadequately protected vehicles. The unit which eventually did carry out the mission was, in fact, hit. One soldier on that mission, Sgt. Scott Montgomery, was wounded by shrapnel in the attack. "Had we not had armor on our vehicle," he said, "my entire crew would have been killed." He further charged, "If the 343rd Quartermaster unit had taken that convoy with unarmored vehicles, there would certainly have been more unnecessary deaths of U.S. soldiers."