Rumsfeld says Army is better now than it was in previous years

[Purveyor]

WASHINGTON - Despite the strains of the Iraq war, the Army today is "vastly better" and more capable now than it was two to eight years ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday.

"It has much more equipment, much better equipment, and it's better trained and more experienced, and it is a better Army," Rumsfeld said, at a briefing at the Pentagon. "Notwithstanding the fact that it is possible to look at some charts and show that something has changed."

Rumsfeld's remarks came just one day after Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that more than two-thirds of the Army National Guard's brigades are not combat-ready primarily because of a $21 billion shortfall in equipment - most of it lost in the war.

Democrats in Congress are also sounding the alarm, accusing the Bush administration of not providing the Army with enough funds to cover operational demands and equipment losses. The Democrats say that a Bush administration cut of $4.9 billion from the Army's fiscal year 2006 supplemental request seriously undermines the Army's ability to replace equipment lost in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15183145.htm

[Deja Q]

1. Just like Americans' livelihoods, right?

:(

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Must be those skinheads. They're Rumsfeld's kind of guy.

[joemurphy]

3. Better than we were at Valley Forge or Bull Run, but just barely.

[CatholicEdHead]

4. Yeah right, with being $5B behind on new equipment

and repairs.

[AlamoDemoc]

5. Rumsfeld is pathological liar, and so as his Commander-in-chief

[lpbk2713]

6. So Rummy, if the Army is so much more capable and vastly better .....

why is it that Navy and Air Force personnel are having to take ground combat positions normally assigned to Army personnel?

[High Plains]

7. I want some of whatever he's been drinking.

Some very high octane Kool-Aid, I suppose.

[Solly Mack]

8. Guess that depends on how you define "better"

and we all know how they define torture...so...

[IndianaGreen]

9. LIAR!!!!!!!!

The Army is FUBAR! This is the worse shape I have ever seen the Army. Rumsfeld must be Osama bin Laden in disguise for all the harm he has done.

[kskiska]

10. Kind of like "New! Improved!"

Makes you wonder how bad the old product was.

[sarge43]

11. Well, that certainly explains why

the Army is now recruiting 42 year olds.

Who does that jackass think he's bs'ing?

[theanarch]

12. Dumbsfeld has surrounded himself with...

...with toadies, sycophants, yes-men, shoe-lickers, ass-kissers, etc...just like Junior, Unka Dick, Gonzo Gonzalez, et al, who tell their bosses exactly what the bosses want to hear, knowing that if they don't, they're out of a cushy, overpaid, essentially do-nothing government job. Just because all these group-thinking, Fourth Reich wannabe's believe their own propoganda, they insist it's every patriotic amerikkan's duty to believe it too. But (to paraphrase Chico Marx), who you gonna believe: Faux News, or your own eyes?

[MadMaddie]

13. His dementia is working overtime.....

The lying rat bastard.....He is destroying our military....

[tanyev]

14. WHAT is he smoking??

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A group of prominent US defense and national security experts sounded an alarm about the strain on US combat forces of lengthy deployments to Iraq, saying the problem has reached crisis levels.

The National Security Advisory Group, chaired by former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, alleged in a letter to top congressional Democrats that the US administration's underfunding of the army represents "a serious failure of civilian stewardship of the military."

"Two-thirds of the army's operating force, active and reserve, is now reporting in as unready," the group wrote in their letter to lawmakers.

"There is not a single non-deployed Army Brigade Combat Team in the United States that is ready to deploy.

The letter continued: "The bottom line is that our army currently has no ready, strategic reserve. Not since the Vietnam era and its aftermath has the Army's readiness been so degraded."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2428343

[saigon68]

15. He is smoking a BAD grade of cheap STREET CRACK

The stuff that's laced with drain cleaner and arsenic.

[Disturbed]

16. Would you buy a used car from Rumsfailed?

Hmmmmmmmm?

[struggle4progress]

25. What? Used humvee? Only driven inside the Green Zone on Sundays?

[saigon68]

29. Not me not a chance

[Redstone]

17. Fuck me. I thought I'd heard it all. Guess I haven't/

Redstone

[Just Me]

18. He is seriously effed in the head,...know what I mean?

:silly: Self-induced psychosis,...just like the rest of his cult.

[yorkiemommie1]

19. tinkerbell

everything is all better if you BELIEVE and CLAP YOUR HANDS, clap, clap.

[gratuitous]

20. Delusional

And nobody wants to contradict the crazy guy.

[Quantess]

21. Well, of course he's going to say that, DUH.

He's a liar, what did you expect him to say?

[lonestarnot]

22. Nutball! He needs to take his nutfuckery and go home if they'll have him.

We have no strategic ready reserve. Can't someone just buy him a one way plane ticket to a cave?

[w4rma]

23. Rumsfeld is a moonbat. (nt)

[daleo]

24. This is Rummy's version of natural selection

Make sure your army is constantly at war, then the survivors must be great soldiers.

[Kurovski]

26. And the leadership has never, ever been worse.(nt)

[Rex]

27. something has changed

you better believe it.

[Canuckistanian]

28. Like when, during Valley Forge?

I'd have to agree on that point.

Oops, joemurphy beat me.

[Tight_rope]

30. Who does this fuck twod think he's fools.

[tabasco]

31. Surprise, surprise.

Rumsfeld lying again.

[MrCoffee]

32. Headline Correction

Rumsfeld says his head is further up his ass than it has been in years. The Mercury News apologizes for its misquote.

[lebkuchen]

33. Is exhaustion a desired characteristic in Rummy lingo?

:shrug:

[CraigHinTenn]

34. unbelievable

[MrCoffee]

35. Did Rummycakes really tell Iraq vets that they suck?

"the Army today is "vastly better" and more capable now than it was two to eight years ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday"

So if you rotated out of Iraq 3 years ago, thanks for nothing, slackers. What an amazing fucktard this waste of oxygen is.

[Az_lefty]

36. does that fool understand that 2/3's of the Armys combat brigades

are not combat ready? :grr:

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

37. Rumsfeld needs to go back in his cave with chaney

n/t

[Old and In the Way]

38. Oh my goodness.

Another couple of years with Dick, Don, and George at the wheel and we'll be finally over that awful time of peace and prosperity in the 90s. If their plan was to destroy the USA, I think they will have succeeded nicely.