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December 08, 2004
'We don't need no steenkin' armor!'
Continuing the trend of the Bush Administration's policy of "Snippy Answers to Smart Questions", Rummy was on the defensive yesterday whilst fielding questions from field soldiers stationed in Camp Buehring, Kuwait. "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" posited Army Specialist Thomas Wilson, amidst loud cheers from his fellow soldiers. After dumbing down the question so that he could better understand it, a flustered Rumsfeld replied:
"You go to war with the Army you have," not the one you might want, and that any rate the Army was pushing manufacturers of vehicle armor to produce it as fast as humanly possible.(Translation: "We don't have what we need to get the job done, and if the equipment manufacturers can't meet the demands for producing the gear we require to fight a war for which we were obviously ill-prepared, then it's their fault, not ours.")
And, the defense chief added, armor is not always a savior in the kind of combat U.S. troops face in Iraq, where the insurgents' weapon of choice is the roadside bomb, or improvised explosive device that has killed and maimed hundreds, if not thousands, of American troops since the summer of 2003.(Translation: "Armor, schmarmor, there'll still be a whole heap o' killin' and maimin' in the days ahead.")
As if confirming that not only are the soldiers underequipped, but the situation is hopeless, Rumsfeld continued: "You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can (still) be blown up."
Of course, it's riding in those vehicles with the paper-thin fabrication that keeps the soldiers nervous. But it should also make the Board of Directors of the Aerospace & Defense Group at Armor Holdings, Inc. a little nervous too... since they're not only the "sole-source provider to the U.S. military of the armor and blast protection systems" for military humvees (with corporate earnings in 2003 reaching $92 million), but they're gearing up to have the blood of many a dead American soldier pinned on them by Rumsfeld and his crew.
Posted By | December 8, 2004 08:51 AM | DIGG ME!
