[GAsux]

No you damned hippy liberal. Bill Clinton made troops dig through dumpsters to for scrap metal to use as armor for helicopters. Jesus.

Anyway, it would appear the "planted" question did in fact come from a reporter. Shady journalism perhaps, but it hardly changes the nature of the question, nor Rumsfelds response to it.

The heart of the matter is this. If the Administration is going to stand in front of the troops and say we support you and we appreciate the work you do, and concurrently we're going to give you the tools to do the job, then there should not be a single convoy vehicle in the entire country driving on Iraqi roads without proper armor.

If we can delve out multi-million dollar contracts to find a way to provide food for mess halls all over the country, we can also find ways to contract up-armoring Humvees and Dueces.

The fact is, the Army was built for a ground war in Europe. No one with a shred of brain power refutes that. hence the Armies recent push to be a leaner, more mobile force. Conventional European ground war doctrine does not include provisions for heavily armoured support and supply vehicles because there is no anticipation of IED's, etc. Additionally, heavy armor which already has such equipment would be tasked for the bulk of the combat.

But in an urban environment, which the Admin KNEW it was getting into, heavy armor is useless. Insted you rely on lightly armed, mobile vehicles. Which are clearly not equipped to handle rockets and explosives.

The Administration felt it was more important to start the wheels of war than it was to ensure all the tools for the job were ready. If enough up-armored vehicles weren't ready to meet the demands of war, they should not have given a green light.

Doing so tells soldiers on the ground that you have no regard for their safety, and that the "right tools for the job" babble is little more than blowhard Pentagon speak.