Military leaders knew the dangers posed by roadside bombs before the start of the Iraq war but did little to develop vehicles that were known to better protect forces from what proved to be the conflict's deadliest weapon, a report by the Pentagon inspector general says.So not only did they screw up the pre-war intelligence, they screwed up the pre-war preparation.The Pentagon "was aware of the threat posed by mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) & and of the availability of mine resistant vehicles years before insurgent actions began in Iraq in 2003," says the 72-page report, which was reviewed by USA TODAY.
Heckuva job, Bushie!
5 comments:
John K: This post shows how stupid left leaning kooks are. They think they discovered IED's. In prior years they were called command detonated mines.
That's not what the post says (that the left thinks they discovered IED's), which reflects badly on conservatives as represented by John K. In fact, it is unfortunate that you know that by IED's had a different name in the past; it reinforces the point of the post. The Pentagon clearly knew about the threat, but were slow to react and were unprepared. Some of our soldiers died because of that, some were simply maimed and permanently injured.
I realize that Iraq isn't like Vietnam (dripping sarcasm), but I had to wonder how "Improvised Explosive Devices" came as such a surprise. The VC were masters at turning dud 155's into IED/Command Detonated mines/booby traps/widow makers. Hell, Israel pulled out of Lebanon in the past decade largely because of their daily losses to such weapons.
The reason we weren't prepared for them, or for the insurgency in general:
IT DIDN'T FIT IN WITH THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S THEORY THAT IRAQIS WOULD BE SO OVERJOYED TO BE FREE OF SADDAM THAT THEY'D MEET US WITH FLOWERS.
Bastards.
The names have changed over the years. Sadly, widows, and widowers, are still being made.
It's extraordinarily incorrect to blame this one on President Bush. The vehicles in question were designed (and largely built) year -- decades, really -- before Bush ever took office. Designing something like a military vehicle (and that includes the ships that I served on) always -- always -- involves a huge number of tradeoffs. You simply cannot put armor everywhere, because you will reach the point where the damn thing can no longer move.
So you place your bets, and do your best to guess where the vehicle is most likely to get hit.
Most of these vehicles were designed during the Cold War, with Germany in mind. The expectation was that we were exceedingly unlikely to invade East Germany, and that the most likely battles would be fought after the Soviets crossed the border into West Germany.
Since the battle would be fought in our territory, mines were not considered to be as much of a threat as, for example, missiles and tank-fired rounds that mostly come in from the side. So the undersides of most vehicles were left largely unarmored.
The other nasty fact is that our military tends to focus on the "sexy", most dramatic aspects of warfare. Mines (both on land and at sea) are considered "boring" weapons that just sit there and do little but wait. So they get less attention, both offensively and defensively.
Even if President Bush had made mine defense his very top priority on his first day in office, the designs for these vehicles wouldn't have even made it off the drawing board -- let alone into production -- by the time the Iraq war began.
On a side note, since the Admiral brought up the Cold War: I will never believe that even the Bushies thought that Saddam had WMD's ready to go (Was it Blair who said "On 30 minutes notice," or was that someone else?")
My reasoning is simple: Back in the 70's, there was enough of an expectation that the Soviets would use tactical nukes, or chemical weapons, that we trained, and maneuvered, with that threat in mind. When we invaded Iraq, they sent relatively tightly packed columns up the main higways to Baghdad. That's not how you'd deploy troops if you expected to be hit with "Area Weapons," or, as they are known, WMD's.
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