Disgruntled Troops Complain to Rumsfeld

heyjupiter678 · #1 12-08-2004, 12:46 PM

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...mi_ea/rumsfeld

Disgruntled Troops Complain to Rumsfeld

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait - Disgruntled U.S. soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday about the lack of armor for their vehicles and long deployments, drawing a blunt retort from the Pentagon chief.

"You go to war with the Army you have," he said in a rare public airing of rank-and-file concerns among the troops.

In his prepared remarks earlier, Rumsfeld had urged the troops — mostly National Guard and Reserve soldiers — to discount critics of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) and to help "win the test of wills" with the insurgents.

Some of soldiers, however, had criticisms of their own — not of the war itself but of how it is being fought.

Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, for example, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld in a question-and-answer session why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly two years after the start of the war that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.

Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

"We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north," Wilson said after asking again.

Rumsfeld replied that troops should make the best of the conditions they face and said the Army was pushing manufacturers of vehicle armor to produce it as fast as humanly possible.

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.

"You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can (still) be blown up," Rumsfeld said.

Asked later about Wilson's complaint, the deputy commanding general of U.S. forces in Kuwait, Maj. Gen. Gary Speer, said in an interview that as far as he knows, every vehicle that is deploying to Iraq from Camp Buehring in Kuwait has at least "Level 3" armor. That means it at least has locally fabricated armor for its side panels, but not necessarily bulletproof windows or protection against explosions that penetrate the floorboard.

Speer said he was not aware that soldiers were searching landfills for scrap metal and used bulletproof glass.

During the question-and-answer session, another soldier complained that active-duty Army units sometimes get priority over the National Guard and Reserve units for the best equipment in Iraq.

"There's no way I can prove it, but I am told the Army is breaking its neck to see that there is not" discrimination against the National Guard and Reserve in terms of providing equipment, Rumsfeld said.

Yet another soldier asked, without putting it to Rumsfeld as a direct criticism, how much longer the Army will continue using its "stop loss" power to prevent soldiers from leaving the service who are otherwise eligible to retire or quit.

Rumsfeld said that this condition was simply a fact of life for soldiers at time of war.

"It's basically a sound principle, it's nothing new, it's been well understood" by soldiers, he said. "My guess is it will continue to be used as little as possible, but that it will continue to be used."

In his opening remarks, Rumsfeld stressed that soldiers who are heading to Iraq should not believe those who say the insurgents cannot be defeated or who otherwise doubt the will of the military to win.

"They say we can't prevail. I see that violence and say we must win," Rumsfeld said.

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Little Nicki · #2 12-08-2004, 03:10 PM

Is this the same HeyJupiter on Xanga?!?!? Cuz if it is... YEAY!!! I know you!

ryan8472 · #3 12-08-2004, 08:59 PM

Dont'cha just LOVE that guy? Such a sense of humour

heyjupiter678 · #4 12-08-2004, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Little Nicki

Is this the same HeyJupiter on Xanga?!?!? Cuz if it is... YEAY!!! I know you!

Yeah, it's me.

Glad to see you at the Ledge, Nicki!

gldstwmn · #5 12-09-2004, 01:17 AM

Rumsfeld is quite simply a steaming heap of cow dung.

heyjupiter678 · #6 12-09-2004, 05:16 PM

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...sa_rumsfeld_dc

Bush, Rumsfeld Try to Soothe Angry U.S. Troops

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Thursday U.S. troop concerns about inadequate equipment for Iraq combat are being addressed and he did not blame soldiers for raising the issue with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

A day after he was bombarded with criticism from U.S. soldiers based in Kuwait, Rumsfeld promised more would be done to protect forces. He also said steps were being taken to deal with explosive devices, a leading cause of death in Iraq, where more than 1,000 American soldiers have been killed in action.

Since invading Iraq last year, administration critics have accused it of failing to send adequate forces and armor to stabilize the country, allowing the current bloody insurgency to develop.

The latest complaints put the administration further on the defensive. Bush had rejected charges from Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry in the campaign for last month's election that military forces in Iraq did not have sufficient protection.

"The concerns expressed are being addressed, and that is, we expect our troops to have the best possible equipment. And if I were a soldier overseas, wanting to defend my country, I'd want to ask the secretary of defense the same question," Bush said.

He told reporters in an Oval Office event that he has been telling military families that "we're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones in a mission which is vital and important."

California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Leader in the House of Representatives, said Rumsfeld should be fired.

She said the Iraq war "began 21 months ago and Secretary Rumsfeld has still not done what is necessary, which is his highest duty, to protect our troops to the greatest degree possible. No CEO in America would retain a manager with so clear a record of failure and neither should President Bush."

White House budget director Joshua Bolten said the administration will ask Congress early next year for additional funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congressional sources said the package could top $70 billion.

"We prefer to do it as late as possible so that we know what our needs are going to be," Bolten said. But he added that he does not expect the Defense Department's "funding streams to be constrained at all at any time between now and the release of the budget" in early February.

Meeting with troops in Kuwait on Wednesday, Rumsfeld heard several complaints, including one from Spc. Thomas Wilson that U.S. forces were forced to dig up scrap metal to protect their vehicles in Iraq because of a shortage of armored ones.

"CONSTRUCTIVE EXCHANGE"

"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know, and that's a good thing. I think it's a very constructive exchange," Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him on Thursday in India, another stop on a regional tour.

As the military adjusts to changing tactics of the insurgency, it requires different types of equipment and approaches, Rumsfeld said. "It doesn't happen instantaneously, but it has been happening pretty rapidly," he said.

The criticism came just days after the White House announced Rumsfeld would stay on in Bush's second-term Cabinet and the White House closed ranks behind him.

In an apparent effort to damp down the political fallout the U.S. general in charge of coalition ground forces in Iraq vowed to make sure all American military vehicles - including trucks - driven into Iraq in the future would contain at least minimal armor plating.

"And so we're continuing to work feverishly to ensure that they make our requirement that nobody goes north without it," Army Lt. Gen. Steven Whitcomb told Pentagon reporters in a hastily arranged teleconference from Kuwait, where U.S. troops have been gathering before entering Iraq.

Whitcomb told reporters progress had been made since August of last year to upgrade armor on "Humvee" jeeps, although the military was still about 2,000 short of 8,100 "up-armored" heavily-protected Humvees requested by commanders in Iraq.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria in New Delhi and Sue Pleming, Vicki Allen and Adam Entous in Washington)