The armor tempest in a teapot
"He who hesitates is lost." That's me in this case. I had intended to blog three days ago of a front-page story in The Tennessean on Dec. 16, "Unit's vehicles all had armor within day of soldier's query."

The unit, of course, is the Tennessee Army National Guard's 278th Regimental Combat Team. Its member Spc. Thomas Wilson had question Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about why armor supplies for the unit's vehicles were so lacking. Reports the paper,

Within 24 hours after a soldier from Nashville challenged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about armor shortages in Iraq, protective armor had been added to every vehicle in the soldier's unit, senior Army officers said yesterday.

In fact, of the unit's 830 vehicles, only 20 lacked armor when Wilson asked the question, and those 20 were "up armored" by the end of the next day. Wilson's question had nothing to do with their completion; they were already scheduled for completion.

Powerline reported this the day after, on the 17th, and Glenn Reynolds reported it today. Glenn observes, "... it's rather shocking that we're just now hearing this."

Yes and no. No in that we're not "just now" hearing this as it was carried in the media three or four days ago. The Tennessean carried it the 16th but other media carried it the day before, such as the Washington Times. But Glenn has a point in that not many media carried it. The number of media who did feature the facts is a tiny minority of those who pasted Spc. Wilson's uninformed question all over their pages or broadcasts.

Powerline says that "the Dems have jumped on the armor hoax with both feet. Well, so did the Republicans. Recall that Trent Lott (how long, oh Lord?) called for Rumsfeld to step down and so did Republican Senators John Warner, John McCain, Chuck Hagel, Trent Lott and Susan Collins. The Rumsfeld pile-on has been quite bipartisan.

My long-term readers may recall that I am no member of the Donald Rumsfeld fan club myself, but the calls for his head from US Senators over the phony armor shortage is absurd - especially from Republican Sen. John McCain; I increasingly wonder whether he knows he often seems to disconnect brain from tongue when making the talk shows. McCain's Senate duties have included direct oversight of DOD expenditures since the years of the Clinton administration.

Yet the Tennessean reported,

The Pentagon is spending $4.1 billion over the next year to add armor to vehicles in Iraq. [Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey] Sorenson said 35,000 of them need armored protection, of which 29,000 have been funded by Congress.

Got that? The Army's funding for armor is 6,000 vehicles short because John McCain won't choke up the money.

All of which is to say that it's business as usual on Capitol Hill: to seem rather than to be.

by Donald Sensing, 12/19/2004 03:19:00 PM. Permalink |