Ied

[Yerdaddy]

The Washington Post just ran a five part series on the IED in Iraq and Afghanistan (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/specials/leftofboom/index.html). It's required reading.

INTRODUCTION: 'The single most effective weapon against our deployed forces' (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/29/AR2007092900750_pf.html)

Since that first fatal detonation of what is now known as an improvised explosive device, more than 81,000 IED attacks have occurred in Iraq, including 25,000 so far this year, according to U.S. military sources. The war has indeed metastasized into something "completely different," a conflict in which the roadside bomb in its many variants -- including "suicide, vehicle-borne" -- has become the signature weapon in Iraq and Afghanistan, as iconic as the machine gun in World War I or the laser-guided "smart bomb" in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

IEDs have caused nearly two-thirds of the 3,100 American combat deaths in Iraq, and an even higher proportion of battle wounds. This year alone, through mid-July, they have also resulted in an estimated 11,000 Iraqi civilian casualties and more than 600 deaths among Iraqi security forces. To the extent that the United States is not winning militarily in Iraq, the roadside bomb, which as of Sept. 22 had killed or wounded 21,200 Americans, is both a proximate cause and a metaphor for the miscalculation and improvisation that have characterized the war.

The battle against this weapon has been a fitful struggle to regain the initiative -- a relentless cycle of measure, countermeasure and counter-countermeasure -- not only by discovering or neutralizing hidden bombs, the so-called fight at the roadside, but also by trying to identify and destroy the shadowy network of financiers, strategists, bombmakers and emplacers who have formed at least 160 insurgent cells in Iraq, according to a senior Defense Department official. But despite nearly $10 billion spent in the past four years by the department's main IED-fighting agency, with an additional $4.5 billion budgeted for fiscal 2008, the IED remains "the single most effective weapon against our deployed forces," as the Pentagon acknowledged this year.

As early as 2003, Army officers spoke of shifting the counter-IED effort "left of boom" by disrupting insurgent cells before bombs are built and planted. Yet U.S. efforts have focused overwhelmingly on "right of boom"-- by mitigating the effects of a bomb blast with heavier armor, sturdier vehicles and better trauma care -- or on the boom itself, by spending, for example, more than $3 billion on 14 types of electronic jammers that sometimes also jammed the radios of friendly forces.

For years the counter-IED effort was defensive, reactive and ultimately inadequate, driven initially by a presumption that IEDs were a passing nuisance in a short war, and then by an abiding faith that science would solve the problem.

"Americans want technical solutions. They want the silver bullet," said Rear Adm. Arch Macy, commander of the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Washington, which now oversees several counter-IED technologies. "The solution to IEDs is the whole range of national power --political-military affairs, strategy, operations, intelligence."

The costly and frustrating struggle against a weapon barely on the horizon of military planners before the war in Iraq provides a unique lens for examining what some Pentagon officials now call the Long War, and for understanding how the easy victory of 2003 became the morass of 2007.

This introduction and the four-part narrative that follows are drawn from more than 140 interviews with military and congressional officials, contractors, scientists, and defense analysts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Washington and elsewhere. Most agreed to speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity, because of the sensitivity of the subject, or because they are not authorized to comment. Ten senior officers or retired officers, each of them intimately involved in the counter-IED fight, were asked to review the findings for accuracy and security considerations.

As U.S. casualties spiraled from dozens to hundreds to many thousands, the quest for IED countermeasures grew both desperate and ingenious. Honeybees and hunting dogs searched for explosives. Soldiers fashioned makeshift "hillbilly armor." Jammers proliferated, with names like Warlock, Chameleon, Acorn and Duke. Strategists concocted bomb-busting techniques, such as "IED Blitz" and "backtracking" and "persistent stare."

Yet bombs continued to detonate, and soldiers kept dying. The 100 or so daily IED "events" -- bombs that blow up, as well as those discovered before they detonate -- have doubled since the 50 per day typical in January 2006. The 3,229 IEDs recorded in March of this year put the monthly total in Iraq above 3,000 for the first time, a threshold also exceeded in May and June. "The numbers," one Army colonel said, "are astonishing."

And there is another mostly unspoken fear. With approximately 300 IED attacks occurring each month beyond the borders of Iraq and Afghanistan -- a Pentagon document cites incidents in the Philippines, Russia, Colombia, Algeria and Somalia, among other places -- the question occupying many defense specialists is whether the roadside bomb inevitably will appear in the United States in significant numbers. "It's one thing to have bombs going off in Baghdad, but it will be quite another thing when guys with vests full of explosives start blowing themselves up in Washington," said the Navy analyst. "That has all sorts of repercussions, for the economy, for civil liberties."

PART 1: 'The IED problem is getting out of control. We've got to stop the bleeding.' (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/29/AR2007092900751_pf.html)

PART 2: 'There was a two-year learning curve . . . and a lot of people died in those two years' (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001675_pf.html)

PART 3: 'You can't armor your way out of this problem' (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/01/AR2007100101760.html)

PART 4: 'If you don't go after the network, you're never going to stop these guys. Never.' (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/02/AR2007100202366_pf.html)

[A.J.]

It's tragically ironic that we have to spend billions to have our best minds design a system to defeat a relatively cheap weapon that seemingly anyone can make.

[Freitag]

I haven't read the article yet, but it was my understanding that a majority of the unmanned IEDs were set off via cellphone.

Isn't there a way that we can start with the cellphone technology first? Perhaps limiting access on certain bands in certain areas?

edit: read the article. They're using jammers and the terrorists went infrared. I see.

[JPMNICK]

21,200 troops that were hurt by these and not killed. i am trying to type something here but i just can not put into words how sorry i feel for these guys who have to come home at age 22 missing limbs and shit. we really need to step up the use of force over there and start controlling shit.

[CofyCrakCocaine]

Maybe if the stupid politics allowed our guys to actually shoot the guys without having to radio in to their COs permission to return fire, *maybe* that would save a couple lives. Just maybe.

[Freitag]

And let me be the first to mention the curious timing of this piece, when reports came out yesterday that military deaths in Iraq are at a 12-month low.

[Freitag]

21,200 troops that were hurt by these and not killed. i am trying to type something here but i just can not put into words how sorry i feel for these guys who have to come home at age 22 missing limbs and shit. we really need to step up the use of force over there and start controlling shit.

Look, we got less than a year and a half of this crap left. Once (hopefully) Giuliani gets in, we'll have someone with half a clue on how to clean up this mess up.

Look at it this way. Iraq = Post-Dinkins New York City x1000. Fortunately, Rudy's got a bigger budget and more manpower.

[moochcassidy]

Look, we got less than a year and a half of this crap left. Once (hopefully) Giuliani gets in, we'll have someone with half a clue on how to clean up this mess up.

Look at it this way. Iraq = Post-Dinkins New York City x1000. Fortunately, Rudy's got a bigger budget and more manpower.


good luck with that

[clockworkjoey]

ASK you politicians why they allowed a tax break in the time of war. and why all the closed auto plants in the USA and not up and running and manufacturing state of the art blast proff humves. we have troops that need the trucks as much as we have UAW workers laidoff and looking for jobs.

[Fezticle98]

I read the fourth part of the series and some of the third.

Most fascinating thing: the use of honeybees to detect explosives. Their reward is sugar water. But what happens when they find a way to procure their own sugar water? We're screwed.

[Tallman388]

ASK you politicians why they allowed a tax break in the time of war. and why all the closed auto plants in the USA and not up and running and manufacturing state of the art blast proff humves. we have troops that need the trucks as much as we have UAW workers laidoff and looking for jobs.

The correllation between the war effort and the UAW's problems don't really work that well. The UAW's problems are related to greedy union leadership rather than tax breaks. There are plenty of plants currently building armored Humvees, but they seem to be a step behind the non-union IED plants.

[clockworkjoey]

The correllation between the war effort and the UAW's problems don't really work that well. The UAW's problems are related to greedy union leadership rather than tax breaks. There are plenty of plants currently building armored Humvees, but they seem to be a step behind the non-union IED plants.

ok my point was a little out there but all i'm saying is that we don't want to gear up as a nation and do whats right "for the troops". i'm saying that while are boys are digging thru junk yards in Iraq looking for steele to up armor the humvees we have an out of work population and a economy hanging by a thread. why not take these closed down plants all over the country build what these guys need to survive and get home alive. and when you say plenty of plants build humvees where are they made? according to AM General the company that makes them they are made in only one plant in the united states where as in most other wars, when we went to war dozens of plants across the country manufactured jeeps so why can't this happen now.

Unions
Support
America

IBEW LOCAL 102

http://www.amgeneral.com/corporate_faqs.php#8

[Tallman388]

I was thinking more along the lines of the Up-Armor Kits that are mounted post production, but whatever. I'm not sure that pro-union propaganda is an effective tool against IEDs, especially if AM General is a non-union shop. The main problem still at hand is not increased production of armor, it's increasing production of more sophisticated IEDs.

http://www.defense-update.com/features/du-3-04/up-armored-humvee.htm

[clockworkjoey]

So what your saying is that its not about protecting the soliders properly. this is about the IEDs that are coming into the iraq combat theater?

SCAB

[Tallman388]

No I'm saying it's not about draining the economy for the benefit of lazy UAW members!
The entire thread is about the continuing sophistication of the IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan and how our military is lagging behind in protecting our troops because they can't find an appropriate shield in relation to the power and effectiveness of the IEDs. As well as the fact that they can't find a more reliable method of detecting them than bees. The whole thing sucks because we continue to lose troops because we can't come up with answers fast enough.
Did you even read the articles or are you just quoting from the UAW handbook?

[clockworkjoey]

No I'm saying it's not about draining the economy for the benefit of lazy UAW members!
The entire thread is about the continuing sophistication of the IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan and how our military is lagging behind in protecting our troops because they can't find an appropriate shield in relation to the power and effectiveness of the IEDs. As well as the fact that they can't find a more reliable method of detecting them than bees. The whole thing sucks because we continue to lose troops because we can't come up with answers fast enough.
Did you even read the articles or are you just quoting from the UAW handbook?

yes i read the article but i'm past that now.
and i think a possible answer is better armor for the humvees and troop.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2007/February/Militaryservices.htm
these could be buit in mass and for some reason we only have 4000 of these
and never call a union man lazy you DESK MONKEY!

[Tallman388]

They aren't built en masse for a reason:

"The price of each truck ranges from $400,000 to $750,000."

With an "economy hanging by a thread," that's a fairly large burden to take on top of all the other ridiculous spending that's already on the books.

[clockworkjoey]

goes back to my point of why would a president give tax breaks in the middle of a war

[scottinnj]

The downturn in this thread is just further proof we will lose this war, and strengthens my conviction to tell my kids not to give me grandchildren so I get to watch them die in combat fighting an enemy who is more motivated to kill us then we are of them in some shithole country due to the inevitable draft that is coming because we can't get together now and win this once and for all.

How about this? We sacrifice together as Americans, quit buying stuff we don't need, conserve our energy the best we can, suffer higher taxes, elect politicians who will use that revenue as effectively as possible to wage war as terrifyingly as we can.

We did that once before, 65 years ago, and saved the world. We can do it again. The HDTVs and Hummers can wait.

[Yerdaddy]

Look, we got less than a year and a half of this crap left. Once (hopefully) Giuliani gets in, we'll have someone with half a clue on how to clean up this mess up.

Look at it this way. Iraq = Post-Dinkins New York City x1000. Fortunately, Rudy's got a bigger budget and more manpower.

Can you show me any evidence that Giuliani's foreign policy would be any different from Bush's? I've been looking for months and I haven't found any.

[Yerdaddy]

They aren't built en masse for a reason:

"The price of each truck ranges from $400,000 to $750,000."

With an "economy hanging by a thread," that's a fairly large burden to take on top of all the other ridiculous spending that's already on the books.

The cost of acquiring a MRAP vehicle fleet will be significant. However, it is militarily and financially less expensive to acquire MRAP vehicles than to continue to suffer casualties in excess of Vietnam's historical loss rates. Protecting people is cheaper than replacing them in an all-volunteer service. Research by the Math and Statistics branch of the Naval Safety Center incicates that the financial costs associated to casualties should be adjusted upward no less than 250% from its current 1988 baseline to account for the real dollar costs of care and replacement. Adjusted enlisted casualties average $500,000 dollars while officers, depending upon their military occupation range from one to two million dollars each. This means the average light tactical vehicle with one officer and four enlisted personnel is protecting 2.5 million dollars of the DOD's budget. This $2.5 million is real O&M dollars. The argument that "we can't afford armored vehicles" is specious. The opposite is true, at 2.5 million dollars of precious cargo each, the Corps cannot afford UN-armored vehicles.

-Globalsecurity.org (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/mrap.htm)

[Freitag]

Can you show me any evidence that Giuliani's foreign policy would be any different from Bush's? I've been looking for months and I haven't found any.

Can you show me evidence that Giuliani's foreign policy would be the same as Bush's? I mean, Bush's policy is basically throw money and people at the problem without any form of effective leadership. Zero plan, zero intelligence.

Going by past performance, Giuliani has been shown to be the more efficient and saavy politician, has a track record of on-site crisis management, and is highly responsible for the resurgence of New York City. People hated him but he got the job done. As opposed to Bush, who people hate and can't get the job done.

Even without my moderate bias, I can't really can't see one candidate outside of Giuliani who would be an acceptable President.

[Yerdaddy]

Sep. 16, 2007

Pentagon balked at pleas from officers in field for safer vehicles (http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070716/1a_iedcoverxx.art.htm)
Iraqi troops got MRAPs; Americans waited
By Peter Eisler, Blake Morrison and Tom Vanden Brook
USA TODAY

Years before the war began, Pentagon officials knew of the effectiveness of another type of vehicle that better shielded troops from bombs like those that have killed Kincaid and 1,500 other soldiers and Marines. But military officials repeatedly balked at appeals — from commanders on the battlefield and from the Pentagon's own staff — to provide the lifesaving Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP, for patrols and combat missions, USA TODAY found.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates late last month, two U.S. senators said the delays cost the lives of an estimated "621 to 742 Americans" who would have survived explosions had they been in MRAPs rather than Humvees.

The letter, from Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Kit Bond, R-Mo., assumed the initial calls for MRAPs came in February 2005, when Marines in Iraq asked the Pentagon for almost 1,200 of the vehicles. USA TODAY found that the first appeals for the MRAP came much earlier.

As early as December 2003, when the Marines requested their first 27 MRAPs for explosives-disposal teams, Pentagon analysts sent detailed information about the superiority of the vehicles to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, e-mails obtained by USA TODAY show. Later pleas came from Iraq, where commanders saw that the approach the Joint Chiefs embraced — adding armor to the sides of Humvees, the standard vehicles in the war zone — did little to protect against blasts beneath the vehicles.

Despite the efforts, the general who chaired the Joint Chiefs until Oct. 1, 2005, says buying MRAPs "was not on the radar screen when I was chairman." Air Force general Richard Myers, now retired, says top military officials dealt with a number of vehicle issues, including armoring Humvees. The MRAP, however, was "not one of them." Something related to MRAPs "might have crossed my desk," Myers says, "but I don't recall it."

Why the issue never received more of a hearing from top officials early in the war remains a mystery, given the chorus of concern. One Pentagon analyst complained in an April 29, 2004, e-mail to colleagues, for instance, that it was "frustrating to see the pictures of burning Humvees while knowing that there are other vehicles out there that would provide more protection."

The MRAP was not new to the Pentagon. The technology had been developed in South Africa and Rhodesia in the 1970s, making it older than Kincaid and most of the other troops killed by homemade bombs. The Pentagon had tested MRAPs in 2000, purchased fewer than two dozen and sent some to Iraq. They were used primarily to protect explosive ordnance disposal teams, not to transport troops or to chase Iraqi insurgents.

Even as the Pentagon balked at buying MRAPs for U.S. troops, USA TODAY found that the military pushed to buy them for a different fighting force: the Iraqi army.

On Dec. 22, 2004 — two weeks after President Bush told families of servicemembers that "we're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones" — a U.S. Army general solicited ideas for an armored vehicle for the Iraqis. The Army had an "extreme interest" in getting troops better armor, then-brigadier general Roger Nadeau told a subordinate looking at foreign technology, in an e-mail obtained by USA TODAY.

In a follow-up message, Nadeau clarified his request: "What I failed to point out in my first message to you folks is that the US Govt is interested not for US use, but for possible use in fielding assets to the Iraqi military forces."

In response, Lt. Col. Clay Brown, based in Australia, sent information on two types of MRAPs manufactured overseas. "By all accounts, these are some of the best in the world," he wrote. "If I were fitting out the Iraqi Army, this is where I'd look (wish we had some!)"

The first contract for what would become the Iraqi Light Armored Vehicle — virtually identical to the MRAPs sought by U.S. forces then and now, and made in the United States by BAE Systems — was issued in May 2006. The vehicles, called Badgers, began arriving in Iraq 90 days later, according to BAE. In September 2006, the Pentagon said it would provide up to 600 more to Iraqi forces. As of this spring, 400 had been delivered.

The rush to equip the Iraqis stood in stark contrast to the Pentagon's efforts to protect U.S. troops.

In February 2005, two months after Nadeau solicited ideas for better armor for the Iraqis and was told MRAPs were an answer, an urgent-need request for the same type of vehicle came from embattled Marines in Anbar province. The request, signed by then-brigadier general Dennis Hejlik, said the Marines "cannot continue to lose … serious and grave casualties to IEDs … at current rates when a commercial off-the-shelf capability exists to mitigate" them.

Officials at Marine headquarters in Quantico, Va., shelved the request for 1,169 vehicles. Fifteen months passed before a second request reached the Joint Chiefs and was approved. Those vehicles finally began trickling into Anbar in February, two years after the original request. Because of the delay, the Marines are investigating how its urgent-need requests are handled.

The long delay infuriates some members of Congress. "Every day, our troops are being maimed or killed needlessly because we haven't fielded this soon enough," says Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss. "The costs are in human lives, in kids who will never have their legs again, people blind, crippled. That's the real tragedy."

Not until two months ago did the Pentagon champion the MRAP for all U.S. forces. Gates made MRAPs the military's top priority. The plan is to build the vehicles as fast as possible until conditions warrant a change, according to a military official who has direct knowledge of the program but is not authorized to speak on the record. Thousands are in the pipeline at a cost so far of about $2.4 billion.

Gates said he was influenced by a news report — originally in USA TODAY — that disclosed Marine units using MRAPs in Anbar reported no deaths in about 300 roadside bombings in the past year. His tone was grave. "For every month we delay," he said, "scores of young Americans are going to die."

One reason officials put off buying MRAPs in significant quantities: They never expected the war to last this long. Bush set the tone on May 1, 2003, six weeks after the U.S. invasion, when he declared on board the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq from June 2004 until February this year, repeatedly said that troop levels in Iraq would be cut just as soon as Iraqi troops took more responsibility for security. In March 2005, he predicted "very substantial reductions" in U.S. troops by early 2006. He said virtually the same thing a year later.

Casey wasn't the only optimist. In May 2005, Vice President Cheney declared that the insurgency was "in its last throes."

For U.S. forces, however, the answer was something else: adding armor to Humvees. Nadeau and others say the choice made sense because Humvees were already in Iraq and the improvements — adding steel to the sides, upgrading the windows and replacing the canvas doors — could be made quickly, and far more cheaply. Adding armor to a Humvee cost only $14,000; a Humvee armored at the factory cost $191,000; today, an MRAP costs between $600,000 and $1 million, though some foreign models cost only about $200,000 in 2004.

The solution to the IED problem in 2003 had to be "immediate," says retired vice admiral Gordon Holder, director for logistics for the Joint Chiefs until mid-2004. "We had to stop the bleeding." Holder says MRAPs seemed impractical for the immediate need: "We shouldn't take four years to field something the kids needed yesterday."

Would it actually have taken four years? That depends upon how much urgency the Pentagon and Congress attached to speeding production. Force Protection Inc., the small South Carolina company that landed the first significant MRAP contracts, was criticized this month by the Pentagon's inspector general for failing to deliver its vehicles on time. But bigger defense contractors were available then — and have secured MRAP contracts in recent weeks that call for deliveries in as little as four months.

A bigger obstacle might have been philosophical: The MRAP didn't fit the Pentagon's long-term vision of how the military should be equipped.

Then-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld regarded the Iraq war "as a means to change" the military, "make it lighter, make it more responsive, make it more agile," Holder says. The MRAP, heavier and slower than the Humvee, wouldn't have measured up, he says.


Taylor, the Democratic congressman from Mississippi, pressed England about why the Pentagon waited until May to request substantial numbers of MRAPs. "Are you telling me no one could see that (need) coming, no one could recognize that the bottom of the Humvee" didn't protect troops, and "that's why the kids inside are losing their legs and their lives?" Taylor asked.

"That is too simplistic a description," England replied. "People have not died needlessly, and we have not left our people without equipment."

To Pentagon decision-makers, the Humvee seemed able to handle the threat early in the war — roadside bombs, rather than those buried in the roads. "If anybody could have guessed in 2003 that we would be looking at these kind of (high-powered, buried) IEDs that we're seeing now in 2007, then we would have been looking at something much longer" term as a solution, Holder says. "But who had the crystal ball back then?"


Six officers interviewed by USA TODAY say the threat to the Humvees surfaced sooner. Lt. Col. Dallas Eubanks, chief of operations for the Army's 4th Infantry Division in 2003-04, says IEDs became more menacing before he left Iraq. "We were certainly seeing underground IEDs by early 2004," he says.

In mid-2005, two top Marines — Gen. William Nyland, assistant Marine commandant, and Maj. Gen. William Catto, head of Marine Corps Systems Command — testified before Congress that they were seeing an "evolving" threat from underbelly blasts. They said at the time that armored Humvees remained their best defense.


Throughout most of Iraq, they still haven't arrived.

Despite requests from the field, Pentagon officials decided to ration the vehicle. In 2003 and 2004, they bought about 55, and only for explosives-disposal units. But they chose a different approach for protecting the rest of the troops: adding armor to Humvees. The choice was problematic. The Humvee's flat bottom channels an explosion through the center of the vehicle, toward the occupants.

Memos and e-mails obtained by USA TODAY show a stream of concerns about the decision to armor the Humvee. Most went up the chain of command and withered:

•December 2003: At the direction of then-deputy Defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who was troubled by the mounting death toll from IEDs, the Joint Chiefs began to explore options for giving troops better armor. Detailed information on the Wer'Wolf, an MRAP made in the African country of Namibia, was passed from analysts in the Pentagon to Lt. Col. Steven Ware, an aide collecting information for the Joint Chiefs.

•March 30, 2004: Gen. Larry Ellis, in charge of U.S. Forces Command in Atlanta, sent a memo to the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker. He complained that "some Army members and agencies are still in a peacetime posture." U.S. commanders in Iraq told him that the armored Humvee "is not providing the solution the Army hoped to achieve." He didn't recommend MRAPs but rather suggested accelerating production of a combat vehicle called the Stryker. In response, the military said new Humvee armor kits would suffice.

•April 28-29, 2004: Duncan Lang, a Pentagon analyst who worked in acquisition and technology, suggested purchasing the Wer'Wolf, the MRAP put before the Joint Chiefs in December 2003. In an e-mail to colleagues and supervisors, Lang said "a number could be sent to Iraq "as quickly as, or even more quickly than, additional armored Humvees." He called it "frustrating to see the pictures of burning Humvees while knowing that there are other vehicles out there that would provide more protection."

•April 30, 2004: Another Pentagon analyst, Air Force Lt. Col. Bob Harris, forwarded details about MRAP options to a member of the IED task force. The list included a variety of MRAPs, among them the Wer'Wolf and Force Protection's Cougar. "There was no great clarity as to why they didn't pursue these options," Harris says. "I saw it as my job to educate." Harris is now an acquisition officer at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.

Hunter says the advantages the MRAP had on the Humvee were clear. "It's a simple formula," Hunter says. "A vehicle that's 1 foot off the ground gets 16 times that (blast) impact that you get in a vehicle that's 4 feet off the ground," like the MRAP.

Although Hunter favored adding armor to Humvees, he now calls the military's devotion to that approach a costly mistake. "It's true that they saved more lives by moving first on up-armoring the Humvees," he says. "The flaw is that they did nothing on MRAPs. The up-armoring of Humvees didn't have to be an exclusive operation."

Holder dismisses the idea that the Pentagon could have moved on a dual track: armoring Humvees while ordering up MRAPs. He doubts Congress would have funded both at the time. But that's exactly what Congress is doing now — buying both vehicles.


That's about half the article. Read the whole thing.

[Yerdaddy]

Can you show me evidence that Giuliani's foreign policy would be the same as Bush's? I mean, Bush's policy is basically throw money and people at the problem without any form of effective leadership. Zero plan, zero intelligence.

Going by past performance, Giuliani has been shown to be the more efficient and saavy politician, has a track record of on-site crisis management, and is highly responsible for the resurgence of New York City. People hated him but he got the job done. As opposed to Bush, who people hate and can't get the job done.

Even without my moderate bias, I can't really can't see one candidate outside of Giuliani who would be an acceptable President.

I already have:

here (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?p=1475244&highlight=giuliani#post1475244)

Recyclerz did here (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?t=61351&highlight=giuliani&page=3)

here's (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?t=57518&highlight=giuliani) what his own firefighters think of his performance

and there's a little bit here (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?t=63388&highlight=giuliani)

And, seriously, I'm curious what you think is wrong with McCain?

[FUNKMAN]

and to think if we didn't go into iraq most likely not one IED would have went off

president bush is a fucking idiot

[Tallman388]

-Globalsecurity.org (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/mrap.htm)

I know it's hard to detect sarcasm, I was just mocking Union Joe's desire to have the UAW save the troops.

More seriously, though, it's ridiculous that red tape has gotten in the way of the MRAP deployment for nearly 5 years.

[Freitag]

I already have:

here (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?p=1475244&highlight=giuliani#post1475244)

Recyclerz did here (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?t=61351&highlight=giuliani&page=3)

here's (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?t=57518&highlight=giuliani) what his own firefighters think of his performance

and there's a little bit here (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?t=63388&highlight=giuliani)

And, seriously, I'm curious what you think is wrong with McCain?

In all honesty, I would prefer McCain over Giuliani. I think the best possible Republican ticket is McCain/Giuliani. The problem is, at this point, that I don't think McCain can win.

Couple of your links are broken. And just because Giuliani made questionable choices for suggestsions of specific staffers doesn't exactly mean he's Bush Part II.

The question is this:

What did Bush do when he was first elected? What past performance did he have? Other than the things people like to point out (bad student, recovering alcoholic, kinda dumb), he was the governor of Texas. And really not that great of a governor. But for some reason, people chose him over Gore.

Bush would have been out in 2004 if the Democrats got a semi-credible candidate involved. They didn't. They failed, and we got four more years of Bush by default.

As for the Firefighter's Union: That's a whole other issue.

[clockworkjoey]

I know it's hard to detect sarcasm, I was just mocking Union Joe's desire to have the UAW save the troops.

More seriously, though, it's ridiculous that red tape has gotten in the way of the MRAP deployment for nearly 5 years.


OUCH what a burn! Scabs and desk monkeys like yourself never get it and never will.

[high fly]

Having talent like Rick Atkinson on staff is a major reason the Washington Post is a great newspaper....

[Yerdaddy]

In all honesty, I would prefer McCain over Giuliani. I think the best possible Republican ticket is McCain/Giuliani. The problem is, at this point, that I don't think McCain can win.

Couple of your links are broken. And just because Giuliani made questionable choices for suggestsions of specific staffers doesn't exactly mean he's Bush Part II.

The question is this:

What did Bush do when he was first elected? What past performance did he have? Other than the things people like to point out (bad student, recovering alcoholic, kinda dumb), he was the governor of Texas. And really not that great of a governor. But for some reason, people chose him over Gore.

Bush would have been out in 2004 if the Democrats got a semi-credible candidate involved. They didn't. They failed, and we got four more years of Bush by default.

As for the Firefighter's Union: That's a whole other issue.

The first two links are the most relevant to the idea that Giuliani is the man to fix Iraq. In the information posted there, (including his own description of his foreign policy opinions), he demonstrates no significant difference of opinion with Bush, including the reliance on generalized hyperbole and fear-mongering in lieu of specific demonstrations that he has rational thoughts on how to deal with critical national security issues like Iraq or Iran, and in fact some of his rhetoric shows an even more aggressive tendency than Bush has. From reading his words I think he's more likely to blindly attack Iran with the wishful thinking that it will cause them to simply admit the error of their ways and surrender unconditionally to the threat of American might and virtue. His rhetoric and management history also make me think that he is just as likely to govern the war and the other executive branch institutions with ideologues and cronies as Bush has.

On the other hand, while Giuliani has never been more than vaguely critical of Bush's handling of Iraq on minor points, McCain has been more openly critical of Bush's handling of the war, (even at great cost to him politically), he's been consistantly candid and knowledgable about what he sees actually happening in Iraq, (a few stupid gaffes aside), and he's demonstrated through his "maverick" ways that he's the Republican official most committed to principle and pragmatic governance over ideological or partisan loyalty. He's the candidate most experienced with war and foreign policy. And yet Republicans of all stripes, including the ones who claim to have learned their lessons from Bush's mishandling of the war, have abadoned him in favor of the other candidates who've shown nothing but loyalty not only to Bush's military decisions but to his self-serving management decisions and dogmatic public politicitization of every issue.

This is what I don't understand; the very qualities that Republicans say duped them into having faith in Bush for two election cycles are the qualities that define every Republican candidate except McCain and in some ways Ron Paul. But you're all willing to make the same mistake a third time in the name of electability - ie: keeping political power. That's what I don't get, and that's what I guess I'll be seeking an explaination for for the next 13 months. And I won't accept the "he cleaned up Times Square so he can clean up Baghdad" argument, and I won't accept the "you guys are so bad we're better off with more of the same."

NYC hookers and muggers don't compare to the situation in Iraq where military commanders have said, (paraphrasing): "if civil war is checkers, this is chess." Kerry demonstrated all the qualities that the freshly anti-war Republicans say they wish Bush had had now. The statement that he was labeled a "flip-flopper" for was that he proposed that in order for the Congress to approve the war budget for the White House they require a specific war plan from the White House. His floor speech on his "yea" vote for the war authorization stated his support for inspections and a real coalition over unilateral war as a first and only option. And none of the claims the Swift Boaters made about his war record was supported by the official records. The only thing that showed him to be we weak was his unwillingness to attack the Republicans in the same way they attacked him. He had too much faith in the rationality of the American voters. But substantively, in the terms most of us talk about the war now, Kerry was the best candidate for the task of handling Iraq.

So that's my question: what has Giuliani shown that qualifies him to be put anywhere near the controls of American foreign policy?

[Yerdaddy]

Study Faults Delay of Armored Trucks for Iraq (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/washington/17armor.html)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of United States marines may have been killed or wounded by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps officials refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes.

The study, written by a civilian Marine Corps official, accuses the service of “gross mismanagement” in delaying the deliveries of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks for more than two years.

Maj. Manuel Delarosa, a Marine Corps spokesman, called the study “predecisional staff work” and said it would be inappropriate to comment on it.

Cost was a driving factor in the decision to turn down the request for the vehicles, known as MRAPs, according to the study. Authorities in the United States saw the vehicles, which can cost as much as $1 million each, as a financial threat to programs aimed at developing lighter vehicles that were years from being fielded.

After Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates declared the MRAP the Pentagon’s No. 1 acquisition priority in May 2007, the trucks began to be shipped to Iraq in large quantities.

The vehicles weigh as much as 40 tons and have been effective at protecting American forces from roadside bombs, the weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents. Only four American service members have been killed by such bombs while riding in MRAPs; three of those deaths occurred in older versions of the vehicles.

The study’s author, Franz J. Gayl, catalogs what he says were flawed decisions and missteps by midlevel managers in the Marines that occurred well before Mr. Gates replaced Donald H. Rumsfeld in December 2006.

Mr. Gayl, the science and technology adviser to Lt. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, has clashed with his superiors in the past and filed for whistle-blower protection last year.

Why is Rumsfeld on a taskforce on "ideology and terrorism" at Stanford University instead of in prison?

[scottinnj]

The Combat Development Command, which decides what gear to buy, treated the MRAP as an expensive obstacle to long-range plans for equipment that was more mobile and fit into the Marines Corps’ vision as a rapid reaction force, the study said.

Mr. Gayl writes that “if the mass procurement and fielding of MRAPs had begun in 2005” in response to the known and acknowledged threats at that time “hundreds of deaths and injuries could have been prevented.”


I've seen these vehicles. They kick ass. Sure they are big and bulky, but a lot of military trucks are. When I was in the Army, we had exercises to make sure we could deploy 3 divisions of troops from the States to Europe to counter a Soviet invasion. The military basically gets a blank check from the government, and can justify any expense if they can show how it will save soldiers lives.

I am shocked at this, and appalled that the military generals in charge of purchasing equipment took this long. Another article puts field commanders fears of the "soft-skinned" vehicle as far back as 1993:

Lessons unlearned:

Yet as far back as 1993, the military knew it might have a problem. Following the loss of 18 U.S. troops in Mogadishu, Somalia, that year, the Army and several other military institutions, including the Marine Corps Command College and the Army War College, undertook reviews of what had gone wrong. The headlines, of course, focused on poor strategic and command decisions — allowing a U.N. humanitarian operation to turn into a manhunt, failing to set up a rational working relationship between U.S. commanders and the U.N. command.

But the reliance on poorly armored or unarmored vehicles, including Humvees, was another lesson supposedly learned. One of the many official studies of the issue, a 1997 paper by Maj. Clifford E. Day at the Air Command and Staff College in Alabama, concluded the reliance on soft-skinned Humvees “needlessly put their troops in harms way without the proper equipment to successfully complete the mission.”

Full Story Here (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4731185/)

The Humvee is and has been a waste of time and money. The vehicles they replaced in the late 80s were Chevy Blazer 4x4s, which we called CUCVs. It had a diesel engine, could go off road and tow equipment. The Humvee was not adept at moving in rough terrain in Europe where I was stationed, to the point where we would destroy the fiberglass hoods hitting saplings on the side of pathways because the truck was too wide for the fire trails we made with the Blazers. The steel grille guard that is the fancy option for civilian Hummers was a result of us engineering some sort of protection for the truck so it wouldn't get destroyed while on manuevers.

I was never a fan of this piece of garbage. It looks cool, you feel tough driving it, but the cost in 1991 was 70,000 dollars and I'm sure it is more now.

Bottom line in my opinion-Nothing Beats a Chevy!


http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o217/themarshal/truck.jpg

[Yerdaddy]

I've seen these vehicles. They kick ass. Sure they are big and bulky, but a lot of military trucks are. When I was in the Army, we had exercises to make sure we could deploy 3 divisions of troops from the States to Europe to counter a Soviet invasion. The military basically gets a blank check from the government, and can justify any expense if they can show how it will save soldiers lives.

I am shocked at this, and appalled that the military generals in charge of purchasing equipment took this long. Another article puts field commanders fears of the "soft-skinned" vehicle as far back as 1993:



Full Story Here (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4731185/)

The Humvee is and has been a waste of time and money. The vehicles they replaced in the late 80s were Chevy Blazer 4x4s, which we called CUCVs. It had a diesel engine, could go off road and tow equipment. The Humvee was not adept at moving in rough terrain in Europe where I was stationed, to the point where we would destroy the fiberglass hoods hitting saplings on the side of pathways because the truck was too wide for the fire trails we made with the Blazers. The steel grille guard that is the fancy option for civilian Hummers was a result of us engineering some sort of protection for the truck so it wouldn't get destroyed while on manuevers.

I was never a fan of this piece of garbage. It looks cool, you feel tough driving it, but the cost in 1991 was 70,000 dollars and I'm sure it is more now.

Bottom line in my opinion-Nothing Beats a Chevy!


http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o217/themarshal/truck.jpg

You, sir, are a marketing genius!

"Is a Hummer too rough on your grill... too wide for your dirt road? Take a ride on a Chevy!"

[A.J.]

Send over the Canyonero.

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i151/mattwoj/canyonero.jpg