Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Sen. Clinton Says Lack of Body Armor is 'Unforgivable'

"Jan. 10, 2006 — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called the Bush administration "incompetent" when it came to protecting the troops in combat and called the lack of adequate body armor for soldiers and Marines "unforgivable."

So far in Iraq, more than 2,100 American troops have been killed. Critics like Clinton, D-N.Y., say that many of these deaths are the result of inadequate body armor. A secret Pentagon study of 93 Marines who were killed in Iraq found that 74 died after they were hit by a bullet or shrapnel in the torso or shoulders — areas unprotected by the armor most are issued.

"We perhaps could have avoided so many of these fatalities with the right body armor," said Clinton, who recently wrote letters to Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee; and Francis J. Harvey, secretary of the Army, calling for an investigation into why troops were not being protected.

Clinton pointed to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as the culprits. Some have said that supplying Marines and soldiers with armor that covers their sides is too expensive — costing about $260 for each person. Clinton said that considering the United States' defense budget was half a trillion dollars, the additional protection was affordable. She said the administration had refused to listen to people in the field like Paul Bremer, former ambassador to Iraq, who said the United States needed more troops in Iraq to pacify the country."
ABC

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why don't you tell us your opinion on this? Instead of just recapping the news.

11:52 AM  
Blogger madtom said...

Welcome to the blog Anony,

I don't have an opinion on this issue, if you read down the list you will find the opinion of soldiers, which I assume is worth more than any I could give.

From what I have read it's a give and take. More armor restrict movement, adds weight, and makes it hotter, so you have to weigh that with the added safety. That's not to say that we can not learn something from the experience and maybe place the armor in a more strategic locations on the body.

As to the issue of Bermer asking for more troops at a time when the insurgency was heating up, I tend to side with Bermer.

12:06 PM  

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