Rumsfeld response

[akamifeldman]

You've also got to understand that all of this gear costs a LOT of money that the DoD doesn't have.

Riiiight. What's the annnual DOD budget? Oh, I don't know, maybe around
$ 401,700,000,000.00 ish. We ain't runnin' no third-rate supply shop here, this is the friggin "MOST POWERFUL FIGHTING FORCE IN THE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE" or whatever we call it, and frickin' body armor shouldn't be all that far down on our list of expenditures.

I would expect to have to purchase my own bulletproof vest, just as I would expect the need to purchase

Really? Wait...really? I would kinda think that that sort of thing would be like assigned to you...like boots...or tanks. Oh yeah, and did you hear about the Navy's new policy for screening potential aviators? Its called BYOF. Bring Your Own F-18.

 

[Flash]

I think those guys really went out on a limb by questioning him so blatantly.....and they really put him on the spot. In my opinion being a little insubordinate in the process.

I have been to quite a few of these "question the important guy" sessions, though none with someone as high up as Rumsfeld, and things can get a bit blunt sometimes. There are always a few that tread near that fine line, and a handful that cross it, but most of the seniors who do the Q & A bit know this. So what I am basically trying to say is that from my personal experience, the tone of the questions was little different from what I have seen at other Q & A sessions in the military. If the SecDef really wanted to hear from the troops, he got what he asked for.

BTW, if you really want to see a lively Q & A session, the 'Ask the Admirals' session at Tailhook is sometimes quite lively, no media present there.

 

[TurnandBurn55]

Riiiight. What's the annnual DOD budget? Oh, I don't know, maybe around
$ 401,700,000,000.00 ish. We ain't runnin' no third-rate supply shop here, this is the friggin "MOST POWERFUL FIGHTING FORCE IN THE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE" or whatever we call it, and frickin' body armor shouldn't be all that far down on our list of expenditures.

The problem there is that gives you no frame of reference. Obviously we're spending a lot of money on defense (and, as the isolationists and social welfarists will tell you... more than a bunch of our enemies put together). But we also have a huge country with a huge population and a huge economy. That means we have a lot of interests to protect. In order to adequately protect them, you have to compare your defense budget to your GDP.

In FY03 we spent 3.3% of our GDP on defense. That number has actually declined almost every year since 1991.

Just to compare some of our allies in the Middle East and some of our notable enemies

Iran 3.3%
Pakistan 3.9%
Turkey 5.3%
Kuwait 5.8%
Syria- 5.9%
Bahrain- 7.5%
Israel 8.7%
Saudi Arabia- 10%
Oman- 11.4%
Jordan- 20.2%
North Korea- 22.9%

Simply put, we're on the very low end for a country that gets itself involved in 'hot spots' around the world. We've adapted a mentality that we're so speshul and have photon torpedoes and hi-tech stuff so we don't neeeed to spend all that much money on defense. What's the end result? The politicians trim back so far that one day, we wake up and realize our troops aren't equipped with basic defenses.

 

[pltReed]

I waver, in that maybe some of those guys went up to the line in asking such a blunt question.... Rumsfeld did put himself out there and in front of the troops to answer their questions. That seems to be a question on everyone's mind, so why not ask it?

I worked in DC for a year, undergrad Internship, and worked specifically on budgeting, out of my Senator's office. He was working on budugeting requests and omnibus spending, etc. This was several years ago, but with the recent passing of the Omnibus Bill, and then reading this post, it reminded me of that time.

There should be more money poured into the DoD, especially now. There are NO shortages of anything, no rationing, and we all go into convulsions when our oil prices go up. With this Omnibus bill, the extra money was staggering:

$3.5 million for bus acquisition in Atlanta, Ga.;
$2 million for kitchen relocation in Fairbanks North Star Borough in Fairbanks, Alaska;
$1.5 million for a demonstration project to transport naturally chilled water from Lake Ontario to Lake Onondaga;
$500,000 for the Kincaid Park Soccer and Nordic Ski Center in Anchorage, Alaska;
$250,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tenn.;
$200,000 for Fenton Street Village pedestrian linkages in Montgomery Co., Md.;
$100,000 for the Punxsutawney Weather Museum
$100,000 for a municipal swimming pool in Ottawa, Kan.;
$80,000 for the San Diego Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center;
$75,000 for the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in Appleton, Wis.; $35,000 for the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame; and
$25,000 for fitness equipment for the YMCA in Bradford County, Pa.

That's $8,365,000 in needless spending.

"According to Lees, the armor kits for the FMTV trucks will not double the cost of the truck, estimated at $150,000 per unit..."

Without all that garbage in the Omnibus Bill, we could have had 55 new Armored vehicles in Iraq.

HOWEVER, now you're getting into the real political wanking up there. According to TACOM, "...the Army would need to invest up to several million dollars to "come up with a decent strap-on package" for (armored vehicles)..." Well, again, that could have been found in the Omnibus Bill

"The (Humvee) armor protection, however, is not aimed at landmine threats, but was designed to safeguard the crew from shrapnel.
The armor work is being done by O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Company, Fairfield, Ohio. The firm became the Army's supplier of up-armored Humvees in 1993.

Currently, O'Gara is producing between 30 to 45 up-armored Humvees per month and will continue to do so for several years, said Robert E. Morris, the company's vice president for military products. So far, he said in an interview, O'Gara has built about 2,000 of the up-armored vehicles for the Army and the Air Force." - National Defense Magazine

Weaver, who was responsible for the up-armored Humvee effort in the mid-1990s, said "it was a good job but certainly wasn't optimized, because we had to work around the basic design of the Humvee ... We were able to do it with the Humvee because its front wheels offered some reasonable angles to vent the blast. But it is not the way we would have done it, if it had been a major consideration in the early stages of design."

"The bottom line is that the program office is awaiting funding-there is a $1 million unfunded requirement." The up-armored Humvee made headlines three years ago, when a truck driving through Bosnia hit a 14-pound landmine and all three crew members emerged virtually uninjured."

So now they need funding? Well!? I can't really work my mind around this, without vomiting.

Get ready, because THIS is the worst bit:

Weaver, a former program manager, understands the dilemmas associated with keeping projects on budget while meeting all desired specifications. "Armor is expensive," he said. "It leads to the discussion of how much is a life worth." "When the up-armored Humvee was introduced, the armor doubled the cost of the vehicle," he said. "But there were G.Is who were able to walk away from a mine blast who would otherwise have been severely injured or killed."

And THIS is who our Army is contracting with, to make our Armored Vehicles, and save the troops in Iraq. And they're smegging about the cost of armor, and the value of a life. to save money in a budget, when over 8 million just went to bull around the country. I will gladly ride a bike and not use aluminum foil and whatever else the WWII generation did to salvage everything they could to help the front lines.

So no, now I guess I am glad that the question was asked.

 

[helmet91]

apparently the questions were 'planted' by a reporter...

A National Guardsman who asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (search) a bold question about armor on war vehicles went to the microphone after consulting with a Tennessee reporter.
Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts, who is embedded with the 278th Regimental Combat Team (search), wrote about the incident in an e-mail to co-workers sent Wednesday.

Pitts said he worked with guardsmen after being told reporters would not be allowed to ask Rumsfeld any questions.

"I was told yesterday that only soldiers could ask questions so I brought two of them along with me as my escorts," he wrote. "Before hand we worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor their vehicles going into combat have."

Pitts also said he arranged for the questioners to get recognized.

"While waiting for the VIP, I went and found the Sgt. in charge of the microphone for the question and answer session and made sure he knew to get my guys out of the crowd," Pitts wrote in an e-mail that was posted on several Web sites Thursday.


Spc. Thomas "Jerry" Wilson, 31, of Nashville (search), asked Rumsfeld why, after almost two years of war, soldiers were searching dumps for metal to weld on vehicles destined for hostile territory.

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?" Wilson said.

The question appeared to surprise Rumsfeld and prompted cheers among the soldiers listening to him in a hangar.

Tom Griscom, the Chattanooga newspaper's publisher and executive editor, commended the reporter's work Thursday. He said the question was one that members of the unit and their families wanted answered, based on the reporter's previous coverage of training stints in Mississippi and California.

"I think that Lee used what was available to him to get an answer to a story that we have covered and that has been important," said Griscom, who served as White House communications director under President Reagan.

Kelly McBride, a member of the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute, said she did not fault the reporter for getting help with asking the question, but described the failure to include that information with his story as "dishonest with his readers."

"I think he should have been more transparent with his readers," she said.

"I suspect some people would see it as manipulative," McBride said. "I suspect Rumsfeld felt manipulated."

Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said Rumsfeld gives reporters ample time to ask questions and that his appearance in Kuwait was for the soldiers.

"Town Hall meetings are intended for soldiers to have dialogue with the secretary of defense," Di Rita said. "It would be unfortunate to discover that anyone might have interfered with that opportunity, whatever the intention."

Griscom said Thursday he did not have a chance to ask Pitts about exactly how he collaborated with Wilson before the question was posed to Rumsfeld.

In hindsight, Griscom said, the newspaper should have informed readers in a note with the story published Thursday. He said there would be a note to readers in Friday editions.

The reporter's e-mail also indicated Pitts was proud of his role in asking the question: "I just had one of my best days as a journalist today," he wrote.

He said it "felt good" that the question and answer received so much attention from other media.

"I believe lives are at stake with so many soldiers going across the border riding with scrap metal as protection," Pitts wrote. "It may be too late for the unit I am with, but hopefully not for those who come after."

The Chattanooga newspaper and the Tennessee National Guard said Thursday that they could not reach Wilson.

let's hear it for reporters playing "good guy" with the troops just to get a scoop. :thumbdown:

 

[Banjo33]

the tone of the questions was little different from what I have seen at other Q & A sessions in the military

I've never been to one and never watched one. I just assumed these "townhall meetings" were staged and the questions screened beforehand.

 

[VetteMuscle427]

And THIS is who our Army is contracting with, to make our Armored Vehicles, and save the troops in Iraq. And they're smegging about the cost of armor, and the value of a life. to save money in a budget, when over 8 million just went to bull around the country.

Unfortunatly, you can put a price on human life. For anything, there is a cost benefit analysis that can be done.

It is very simple. Think about the amount of money that it would cost to uparmor every vehicle to the point that the crews would survive. The cost per life saved would be ENORMOUS. Now if you want to make the biggest difference based on lives saved, why not put that money into something like... say fire sprinklers in the home, which have a relatively small cost per life saved.

 

[Alex]

let's hear it for reporters playing "good guy" with the troops just to get a scoop. :thumbdown:

This is hardly a "scoop." The lack of protective armor (both body and vehicle) has been reported previously, but it has not received the attention that it probably deserves. This reporter managed to change that.

The methods of this reporter may not have been ethically perfect (especially since he did not reveal the manner in which he influenced the Q&A), but if it results in soldiers getting better protection when deployed to Iraq, who cares? The military should be thankful that there are reporters that are interested in covering issues besides Abu Ghraib.

 

[helmet91]

well, the scoop would be for a national guard grunt calling out the secretary of defense, not the information itself.

 

[Kycntryboy]

The only way that this problem was going to be solved was by bringing it to the nations attention, which it now has. You better believe this is going to be solved fast (maybe not the most efficient) because of citizens pissed about their sons and daughters not having a basic resource to stop a bullet.
The comment that Rumsfeld made about the Tank was ridiculous (about all the armor in the world). Obviously you can't protect something from everything but that doesn't mean you should protect it from nothing.
Pilots need a parachute just a much as a soldier needs a vest or armor

 

[Clux4]

Everyone already knows that our troops don't have bulletproof vest. I mean parents have been sending vest to their children in Iraq. When I was there, at least somebody in the company got 1 per week. I mean we had parents sending scopes for rifles and all soughts of things that were needed. Not all were necessary but a scope on an M-16 and a bullet proof will definitely help. Afterall someone in my unit got saved from a round when the bullet hit the rifle scope his parents sent him

What triggered all this is the situation in which the issue was brought up. I am not sure but did Michael Moore not say something about this in farenheit 9/11? (I did not see it) Well, if has not he will in his sequal.

 

[helmet91]

michael moore is a quack... he could care less about any GI's or their body armor. he's more concernde with anything to make the administration look bad, not the welfare of our troops. as far as i'm concerned he and his cronies would rather see more bodybags come home just so he can try and stick it to W and company.
/stepping off of soapbox

 

[HueyCobra8151]

Clux: Just out of curiousity, what unit did you go to OIF with?

As of right now, all line platoons are getting a4's and SAPII body armor. The people sending body armor now are sending better more lightweight gear...but the military is equipping standard soldiers and Marines properly in that respect; as of right now.

Military people have always upgraded the armor given to them in some manner or another, whether it is soldiers pulling scrap metal out of junkyards in Iraq or using lumber and sandbags to augment trucks in Vietnam.

 

[airpirate25]

I ask myself why we didn't have these sorts of public outcry's in previous wars? Likely becasue the way we fight has so radically changed. I remember telling my dad, an Army veteran about some of the policies we had about rules of engagement and that sort of thing; he was shocked. Perhaps, our efforts to be a "surgical" force has left us more vulnerable than we were in eras where the idea of "bullet proof vests" was unthinkable.

 

[Fly Navy]

You all need to learn more about "bullet proof vests".

A flak jacket does not stop a rifle bullet. A flak jacket is made for fragments and offers some protection from pistol bullets.

The Interceptor armor and such have ballistic plates in them. They can be inserted in the front and the back to stop rifle bullets.

Neither is "bullet proof".

Do the soldiers have flak jackets at least?