[Vision2020] Does Bush Really Support The Troops?

[Kai Eiselein, editor]

What the writer doesn't mention is how heavy and difficult is to get MRAPs 
into place, along with the inabilty and/or difficulty in manuevering them 
through crowded streets.
While they are good at withstanding blasts, their limitations render the 
current models nearly useless in urban warfare.
Spin, baby, spin. To hell with the facts, typical of the NY Slimes.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <nickgier at adelphia.net>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 11:16 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Does Bush Really Support The Troops?


> June 14, 2007
> Editorial, The New York Times
> A Failure to Protect Our Troops
>
> The Bush administration and military leaders in Washington are always 
> claiming that they will do anything to support American troops fighting in 
> Iraq. That makes it all the more infuriating to learn that, for more than 
> two years, the Pentagon largely ignored urgent requests from field 
> commanders for better armor-protected vehicles that could have saved 
> untold lives and limbs.
>
> Improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, can blast through the flat 
> underbelly of the military’s standard Humvees, maiming and killing the 
> soldiers within. These devices, a low-tech response to America’s 
> overwhelming military power, are now causing 70 percent to 80 percent of 
> the American combat deaths in Iraq.
>
> More than two years ago, according to newly disclosed documents, Marine 
> commanders in Al Anbar Province, a center of the Sunni insurgency, 
> submitted an urgent request for more than 1,100 Mine Resistant Ambush 
> Protected Vehicles, or MRAPs, that have V-shaped bottoms able to deflect 
> blasts from below. For reasons yet to be satisfactorily explained, 
> military officials initially sat on the request and then ordered 
> relatively few.
>
> Some, second-guessing the judgment of the battlefield commanders, 
> apparently felt that Humvees with upgraded armor could do the job. Others 
> may have been reluctant to invest billions of dollars in vehicles that 
> might have little use after Iraq. Turf battles were probably also a 
> factor, as a large-scale purchase might threaten future weapons programs. 
> But Iraq is the war that Americans are fighting and dying in today.
>
> . . .
>
> There can be no excuse for failing to provide the best possible protection 
> for American troops in this disastrous war.
>
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