News - Arms Shortage

More stuff the mainstream media hasn't been focused on in their reporting. Again, from the Center for American Progress...

MILITARY -- PACE ADMITS MILITARY LACKS EQUIPMENT TO SUPPORT BUSH'S ESCALATION: In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace admitted that finding enough equipment to support President Bush's escalation plan to send an addition 21,500 combat troops to Iraq would be a "problem." He said further that the "41,000 armored vehicles in Iraq" would be "fewer than will be needed to cover all the the troops that are deploying." One senior Army official suggested to the Washington Post last week that five brigades of Humveess would have to "fall out of the sky" to meet the shortfalls. Last year, the chief of the Pentagon's National Guard Bureau expressed similar sentiments, telling Congress that "at least two-thirds of his units in the United States are not combat-ready." Such shortages are not new. Indeed, the Post reported last week that Guard units have "on average, 40 percent of their required equipment," and according to Army data, "the Guard as a whole is not expected to return to minimum equipment levels until 2013." Reports of cascading supply failures are not likely to end soon. Last week the Pentagon's Inspector General told Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) that two ongoing audits of the procurement of armored vehicles and body armor for American soldiers would be forthcoming in July and October 2007.