[RowansDad]

When you don't plan properly, then the domino effect is sure to kick in....<br><br>
"In fact, senior military officials now tell NBC News all major military equipment — trucks, tanks, helicopters and even guns — is breaking down or wearing out at a faster rate than first estimated.<br><br>
"It's not only due to the harsh desert conditions in Iraq, but the enemy has proven far more effective and resilient than anyone in the Pentagon had imagined. That's putting a far greater load on such equipment as Humvees and tanks — which are working at ten-times the normal rate....<br><br>
"Should the war end today, it would take two years for the United States Army to replenish itself and bring its equipment back to proper state," says Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., and a member of the House Armed Services Committee."<br><br>
More here:<br><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6694659/" target="_blank">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6694659/</a><br><br>
Seriously, does no one in this administration have the courage to resign for this fiasco?

 

[jadegirl553]

Is it horribly jaded and cynical of me to not be surprised? <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/irked.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="irked">:

 

[chicagomom]

Military hardware, eh? Geez, what a cynical way to refer to our soldiers...

 

[RowansDad]

Ugly, ugly, ugly....<br><br><b>Army Repair Posts Scramble to Keep the Troops Equipped</b><br><br>
"When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was confronted by a soldier in Kuwait recently about why troops in Iraq had to scrounge for parts, he might have pointed to the Red River Army Depot on the outskirts of Texarkana for the answer. Here, in unadorned open-air factories, bustling hives of workers struggle through budget limits and a burgeoning repair load to keep the troops equipped.<br><br>
"Twenty-one months after U.S. forces entered Iraq, the Defense Department is only now coming to terms with the equipment shortages caused by the prolonged fighting there. The Pentagon has prepared an unprecedented emergency spending plan totaling nearly $100 billion -- as much as $30 billion more than expected as recently as October -- say senior defense officials and congressional budget aides. About $14 billion of that would go to repairing, replacing and upgrading an increasingly frayed arsenal....<br><br>
"To critics of the Pentagon leadership, the ongoing scramble at the Army's five repair depots speaks volumes about poor war planning, and about Rumsfeld's stubborn determination to transform the military rather than focus on the more prosaic task of rebuilding what the defense chief last week called "the Army you have . . . not the Army you might want."<br><br>
More here:<br><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59924-2004Dec12?language=printer" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer</a><br><br>
How someone doesn't get canned out of all this is beyond me.

 

[DaryLLL]

This idiotic war is bleeding $$$ our country dry. Which is the plan, right? To send us all back to feudal serf status so that our overlords have complete power over us?

 

[DaryLLL]

Speaking of young men's bodies as as "military hardware," I heard a thing on NPR the other day about how there are less deaths in this war than in Viet Nam for a comparable period. But that is b/c the med care is better, not b/c the war is less harsh.<br><br>
So we have more wounded already now than we did in, say, the Civil War. So more young men alive, but missing, say, 3 limbs and most of their face.<br><br>
Great, just great.

 

[brookely ash]

This is just total Bull!!!!!!<br><br>
How in the heck will any of these men and women ever trust their country again? It saddns me greatly to see it going down like this. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/greensad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="greensad">