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thedrifter
01-12-06, 06:05 PM
BODY ARMOR: PENTAGON PUSHBACK
By Michelle Malkin · January 12, 2006 01:03 PM

Following up on my column and post yesterday about Hillary Clinton's exploitation of the body armor issue, here's the latest push back from the Pentagon (via ABC):
The Pentagon is pushing back hard against allegations soldiers' lives have been lost in Iraq because they were not issued adequate body armor.

"There is nothing more important to the Marine Corps than protecting Marines," Major General William Cato told reporters after a closed briefing on the issue for the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Pentagon has been under heavy political fire in the wake of recent reports concerning a secret study that found that up to 80 percent of Marines who died in Iraq from upper body wounds could have survived if they had body armor to protect their sides and shoulders. The study prompted outrage from Democrats on Capitol Hill, including from Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who attributed the problem to the Bush Administration's "incompetence."

"To say incompetence I think is probably not accurate," the Army's Major General Jeffrey A. Sorenson told ABC News. "However we have continued to evolve and the evolving of that is an effort that takes an enormous amount of testing, engineering, design to make sure that the soldiers can get what they need."

Sorenson said the Army is constantly improving the body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He says all of its troops in Iraq have already been issued new shoulder protection. The Army is now placing orders for side armor and says every soldier in Iraq will have it by the end of the year, and many will have it much sooner than that.

The Marines -- who have a much smaller force in Iraq than the Army -- have been able to move more quickly, already equipping 9,200 of their troops have new side armor protection. By the end of April, every Marine will have new side armor.

But whether individual Marines and soldiers actually want to use the new armor is another question.

The military rightly refuses to provide sensitive details on production and distribution, but provided some important details ignored by Hillary and company (via Newsday):
..The Army has already modified its Interceptor vest seven times since the 1990s.

The Marines, who commissioned the medical examiner's study in December 2004, have shipped 9,235 side-plate inserts to Iraq since November; about 19,000 more will be given to troops by April, according to Maj. Gen. William Catto of the Marines' procurement arm.

The delay in the Army program, Pentagon officials say, resulted from shortages of some materials needed to produce the ceramic armor plating and the lack of a single large contractor who can produce mass orders. The Pentagon has also been sensitive to concerns that soldiers, already burdened by 75 pounds of battle gear in a desert war, would refuse to don additional armor.

More facts from the Department of the Army/Force Development:

* To date, nealry 700,000 full sets of Interceptor Body Armor have been provided to Soldiers. In addition, the Army has fielded over 173,000 Deltoid Axillary Protectors to every Soldier in the Area of Operations that provides ballistic protection for Soldiers' sides and shoulders
* No Soldier leaves a US base in Iraq unless they are in at least an armored vehicle, and commanders attempt to put all in a Level I (factory armored) when possible.
* With congressional support, the Army has installed over 26,000 armor kits on vehicles in the area of operations at a cost of over $2.5 billion.
* The Army has moved from producing approx. 30 up-armored HMMWVs a month in 2003 to 450/month in December 2004, and will produce a total of 767 in January 2006 for all customers.

***

McQ at Q&O and Matt at Blackfive weigh in with additional thoughts on the trade-offs ignored by the unreality-based Left.

Jason Smith: "I'm sure we could lovingly wrap every soldier in bubble wrap before inserting them into a bullet-proof 55 gallon drum and then place each of them in a 30 foot hole in the ground to insure absolute protection..."

Reader W.J.:
My grandfather was a flight engineer on B-26 Marauders in WWII and often has told me of a similar line of thinking to “New York’s own” Senator Clinton. During the course of the war popular thinking by ground based staff was to add more armament to the aircraft, specifically the packet guns on the fore of the airframe. As my grandfather put it; “All that did was slow us down and make it easier to hit us.”

Could body armor be better? Perhaps. But like any battlefield technology things improve over time. Had congress knee-jerked about initial B-26 casualties in WWII it would have never have become one of the safest medium bombers in the war. It would never have been able to support our troops on a tactical level that it excelled at.

Senator Clinton weighing into an issue in which she demonstrates no real knowledge reeks of political moves. If this sort of bogus, hindsight attacks on GOP enemies is all she can offer to America…she will be the next John Kerry.

Last word to Iraq war veteran Joshua Todd, who e-mails:

President-elect, er, Senator Hillary Clinton criticized President Bush for failing to protect our troops with adequate body armor, calling him “incompetent.” Her gripe was based on a “secret” Pentagon study of 74 Marines who were killed by bullets or shrapnel wounds to areas of their bodies that were unprotected, mainly the torso and shoulders.

Of course, to state the patently obvious, Ms. Clinton’s comments are political in nature. It is not President Bush’s job to make equipment decisions. Perhaps Clinton’s remarks will cause him to pressure the Pentagon, but it is with the Department of Defense that the junior senator from New York has her qualm.

As for not protecting the troops, I must disagree. While too many soldiers and Marines are injured or killed in roadside bomb (IED) attacks in up-armored HMWWVs, the additional armor clearly saves lives and limbs. I have seen bits of shrapnel stuck in HMWWV doors, as well as marks from shrapnel that failed to penetrate, that, without the armor, would have made for a bad day.

Senator Clinton’s criticism revolves around individual body armor (IBA) vests. She insinuated that the Bush Administration has neglected to improve on existing vests in saying that soldiers and Marines lack “adequate” armor. Based on my experience in Iraq, which spanned from January to December of 2005 in places like Karbala and Babil Provinces with an Army brigade and Anbar Province with a Marine regiment, I observed several varieties of body armor. Moreover, I saw no fewer than three upgrades over the course of eleven months.

All soldiers and Marines—and sailors and airmen, for that matter—on the ground in Iraq are issued a basic vest with protective plates. I was personally impressed with the vest, at least compared with what I knew from previous service, which was a full-Kevlar jacket that was uncomfortable at best, heavily burdensome at worst.

Early in the tour, my battalion was issued two upgrades to the IBA vests. The first was a set of shoulder pads, and the second was a pair of torso pads to protect a soldier’s sides. Both additions were made of Kevlar and all soldiers could draw them; however, many soldiers elected not to wear one or both of the additions because they felt the extra padding was too cumbersome.

During the middle of the tour, we received yet a third upgrade: thicker plates. There were not enough plates to go around, so the soldiers who conducted patrols daily had the priority. As an intelligence analyst, I did not travel much, so I had the lowest level of protection, but the men and women who were subject to immediate dangers everyday received the extra protection.

I will say, based on personal observations, that the Marine Corps is not as well-equipped as the Army. For example, I noticed that most Marines carried M-16 rifles as opposed to the newer M-4 rifles, which may only be a matter of preference. Marines had all of the aforementioned equipment, just not as much, which would be a supply issue that does not typically reach the desks of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Not that anyone needed to actually say that Ms. Clinton’s comments are political and based on misrepresentations, but we often state the obvious. Perhaps the senator’s griping will bring about further equipment improvements for our men and women in Iraq, but there is no reason her criticism should go unanswered as truth. The Administration has improved all types of armor for our troops in Iraq, and they will continue to do so.

You won't be reading this in the NYTimes.

Ellie

yellowwing
01-12-06, 07:10 PM
The Marines -- who have a much smaller force in Iraq than the Army -- have been able to move more quickly, already equipping 9,200 of their troops have new side armor protection. By the end of April, every Marine will have new side armor.
Okay, if there wasn't a problem why did they bother issuing 9,200 new body armor mods. Every once in a while, even Hillary gets one right.