Wonder how this will play into the "Save Bush's Legacy" strategy?

Their gross stupidity is well known, all of this is way too little, way too late.

You go to war with the moron the other side elected.

Yeah but you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want. And if it just so happens that the Army you want is full of maimed soldiers then just put Bush and Rumsfeld in charge.

This was part of their strategy. The more protracted the conflict, the greater the profit.

On orders from "lean and mean" Rummy. United Defense refuted his claim that armored personell carriers werte being made as quickl as possible. Rummy figured it was cheaper and more efficient to waste the extra lives and use less equipment.

IED, also called a mine is something new on the battle field. Nobody has ever heard of a mine before the second Gulf War. SHIT!!!

Do any of you guys think these things thru?

"IED, also called a mine is something new on the battle field. Nobody has ever heard of a mine before the second Gulf War. SHIT!!!Do any of you guys think these things thru?"

This is the thread where the "Can't trust Government to Get Anything Right" traipse out and chortle praise in defense of the "Bush Government"!

It seems like the entire u.s. bureaucracy is a prime example of the Peter Principle.

Well, if it's any consolation at all there was a HUGE stink in the UK about the Range Rovers they had not being IED resistant either...

"Well, if it's any consolation at all there was a HUGE stink in the UK about the Range Rovers they had not being IED resistant either..."

- correction - Land Rover Defenders...

Republicans do not know how to fight a war. They never did and never will. All they do is look for profits in the sale of military equipment.

Why didn't FDR and Truman protect the soldiers from mines during WWII?

You guys just can't quit your hate for BUSH so you grab any straw.

Very few countries had large number of wheeled vehicles that were designed to withstand mine / IED strikes. There were some specialized models in use, but the South Africans were the only ones to use them extensively. I don't know of any army that routinely armors its cargo vehicles either, even when dealing with guerilla warfare. At lot of the focus was on mobility - you can't airlift a lot of heavily armored vehicles and they have limited cross country mobility. One of the problems with the MRAPs is their high center of gravity - they tend to roll over and cause casualties as well. The buffalo that is used in Iraq is also not nearly as useful in Afghanistan since it is too big for the roads and brdges.

Some new technology in design and armor has made it more practical. When I was in Iraq in 03-04, we had no armor on any vehicles. Now, you can't leave the wire without all vehicles having it. The gripe I have is that Rumsfeld dragged his feet on the problem and made statements (like all vehicles having armor) that were not true. Now, there is a ton of money being dumped into IED defeat.

Why didn't FDR and Truman protect the soldiers from mines during WWII?

SNIPER

Are you proposing we didn't learn anything between WW2 and 2003?

To try to blame anyone but Bush and Co. for getting us in this war is ludicrous. Rumsfeld's statement, "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want', was criminal. If we didn't invade in 1991 with 650,000 for fear, as Cheney said in 1994, of Iraq becoming a 'quagmire', what changed that made it feasible to do so with 150,000 underarmored personnel in 2003?

#14 | Posted by deadarmadillo

Welcome home.

I hope you are done with Iraq and can enjoy this Christmas season with your loved ones.

Are you proposing we didn't learn anything between WW2 and 2003?

#15 | Posted by AMERICANUNITY

Yes, but read post # 14

SNIPER

How come the families of soldiers in Iraq had to send money to buy sheet metal they could weld on the underside of vehicles to make them safer?

Did the DOD send shiploads of sheet metal so that every vehicle could be reinforced? Didn't think so.

Why didn't FDR and Truman protect the soldiers from mines during WWII?

#13 | Posted by Sniper

So your notion is that WWII was a conflict that the US did not need to enter into?

ame, did FDR send ship loads of sheet metal to weld to the undersides of jeeps?

726, I didn't say that. I said that our troops have been exposed to mines for close to 100 years and nobody has jumped on the president about it until Bush got into office. Can you explain that fact?

It is the responsibility of the US Army to spare no expense to give its soldiers the best possible equipment. If you are sending people into a dangerous situation, you are responsible for their welfare.
I'm assuming from deadarmadillo's post that the currently existing technology is not practical, therefore it is the duty of the government to pay for research towards a feasible concept. Rumsfeld, as the report says, gave no thought to this.

Sniper:
We are not discussing WWII. We are discussing what is happening now. The US is a leader in ingenuity, and if we cannot figure out a way to protect our troops from incindiary devices created by a country that still can't figure out a nuclear weapon projectile system, then we probably shouldn't be in their. The Iraqi forces are not what I would call an "elite fighting force". We have at least 4 times more resources, and yet we are wasting unecessary lives because our DoD is too cheap where it matters, and to spendfree where it doesn't. This is a failed presidency.

post, You are a sap for ignoring any history at all. I guess you are saying the soldiers of today are more important than WWII, Korea, or Viet Nam. Shove that up your democrat, Bush hating ass buddy.

Well, seeing as the soldiers of those wars are home or dead....yes. I would say that the people who are in danger right now are probably more important than those who are now (thankfully) safe, or for those who (extremely unfortunately) it does not matter anymore.
Especially when their deaths could have been easily prevented, but the people who could have would not, because they didn't see it as an effective way to spend money.
These people are still around to be held culpable.

You don't even have an argument. So please be quiet. I could say that people have gotten away with murder in the past, but does that mean that we can't arrest anybody who commits murder now?
And I'm not even going to compare WWII to The War in Iraq. WWII was actually important. This is a war which could have been avoided by "better intelligence" as Bush calls is. The ultimate irony? This "War on Terror" has actually come to promote terrorism.