We sents Humvees mostly without armor. It took a soldier about one year later to literally ask Sec of Defense Rumsfeld - live and face to face - why American soldiers had insufficient armor. Then an Ohio company who makes that armour said they could more than double production - but Rumsfeld never asked. Extremists politicians declared "Mission Accomplished" - outrightly denied an insurgency - invented lies about Al Qaeda. Why provide armour for a problem that does not exist - according to extremist rhetoric? Same rhetoric that also left bin Laden to run free.
From the NY Times of 6 Jan 2006 that was leaked because this president only cares about his own popularity - like Nixon - at the expense of American troops:
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Extra Armor Could Have Saved Many Lives, Study Shows
A secret Pentagon study has found that at least 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor. That armor has been available since 2003 but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.
The ceramic plates in vests currently worn by the majority of military personnel in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck the marines' shoulders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach.
Thirty-one of the deadly wounds struck the chest or back so close to the plates that simply enlarging the existing shields "would have had the potential to alter the fatal outcome," according to the study, which was obtained by The New York Times.
For the first time, the study by the military's medical examiner shows the cost in lost lives from inadequate armor, even as the Pentagon continues to publicly defend its protection of the troops. ...
The vulnerability of the military's body armor has been known since the start of the war, and is part of a series of problems that have surrounded the protection of American troops. Still, the Marine Corps did not begin buying additional plates to cover the sides of their troops until this September, when it ordered 28,800 sets, Marine Corps officials acknowledge.
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Had Rumsfeld et al acknowledged what their own studies said (and instead not have fired all those researchers all before the war started), then troops would have been provided with armoured HumVees and sufficient armored vests. Problems like this are directly traceable to an administration full of paper soldiers (including an AWOL president). But like MBAs and lawyers, these extremist politicans know they must be right. This same adminstration even called Rep Murtha a coward because Murtha told a correct and honest fact. Just like Nixon who sent 35,000 good Americans to their death knowing that war could not be won. Blame the troops for their own death? Why not if that will protect the president's popularity ratings. Same reasonings used by Nixon during his unjustified war.
An important phrase in that report:
Quote:
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... cost-cutting that left some armoring firms on the brink of collapse as they waited for new orders.
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