Senate committee tasks Army with morale review after Stripes’ report

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18838

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday tasked the Army with providing a point-by-point assessment of Stars and Stripes' recent “Ground Truth” series, in which a significant number of troops in Iraq were laboring under difficult conditions and said morale was low.

<snip>

“When that Stars and Stripes article came out,” Warner said, “it caused a considerable jolt among the ranks here in the Congress.”

<snip>

(Acting Secretary of the Army)Brownlee said it could take until summer 2005 for the Army to have enough “up-armored” Humvees, which are modified to better withstand the potentially fatal blast of a land mine or other ordnance. He said the Army is hoping to speed up the process by examining options for putting armor on existing vehicles.

“I don’t think we can accept an ’05 deadline,” Warner said.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., questioned whether Humvee manufacturing lines were running 24 hours a day.

“It is inconceivable that with our manufacturing capability that we cannot produce that kind of a vehicle more rapidly and replace it,” he said.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Kennedy is missing it

we cannot, that is how much the contry has been de industrialized

[AndyTiedye]

2. AM General Is Too Busy Making H2's for Wealthy Tax-Dodgers

No shortage of those, is there?

[RamboLiberal]

5. Yep - I've been wondering myself why the heck this has never been

pointed out. Why weren't those H2 lines converted to armored Hummer production? Auto production was shut down in WWII so the plants could provide the needed wartime production.

But shared sacrifice in a Bushie war means going shopping for "his and her Hummers" so you can get the big tax break.

[teryang]

3. Maybe they could get some of those firms

...that armor plate luxury cars for corporate CEOs and government VIPs to do it.

[ninkasi]

4. Not nearly as important as the security aspect...

but mail delivery, supplies, etc.; hasn't that been taken over by KBR, or Haliburton, or another Bush cabal crony who will collect enormous sums of money for doing the stingiest amount possible?

[dbt]

6. While we're 'investigating' things,

Perhaps we could look into why our troops were sent into this mess without properly-armored Humvees, enough body armor and helicopters that were not properly equipped to ward off missile/RPG attacks?

Maybe we could also investigate why someone sent in too few troops to do the job and who stood to profit from such a move?

:freak:
dbt