No wonder the Bush gang usually insists on speaking exclusively to sycophantic crowds; real people who haven’t been vetted by campaign operatives sometimes ask difficult questions. The nerve of these people!
Donald Rumsfeld, for example, probably thought a little chat with troops serving in Iraq yesterday — mostly National Guard and Reserve soldiers — would be a pleasant encounter. Indeed, his speech was billed as a “pep talk.” Ol’ Rummy’s convinced he’s incapable of making a mistake, so naturally the troops will agree, right? Wrong.
Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, for example, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld in a question-and-answer session why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly three years after the war in Iraq.
“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?” Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.
Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.
“We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north,” Wilson said after asking again.
Rumsfeld replied that, “You go to war with the Army you have,” not the one you might want.
No, I’m afraid this won’t do.
Tom Schaller offered a valuable perspective on this:
Can you imagine, just for a nanosecond, a world in which President Bill Clinton was transported in the world’s most secure vehicles, he sent troops into battle while repeatedly at every opportunity how he does “whatever it takes” to make sure our military has everything it needs, and when some of those troops in harm’s way then dared to ask his Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, why they had to root around in landfills for makeshift armor to secure their own vehicles, that Cohen essentially told them to be happy with what they have because “you fight with the Army you have”?
Talk radio would cease reporting news, traffic and weather and put all advertisements on hold for nonstop orgies about how weak Democrats are on defense.
Damn straight. Republicans on the Hill would be holding hearings and demanding resignations if this were a Dem president. Where’s the outrage? Seriously, where?
Rumsfeld’s response exceeded the already-weak limits of Bush administration lunacy. These troops have volunteered to put their lives on the line to fight in a war that was launched under false pretenses. All they ask is to go into battle with the proper equipment, which may ultimately save them from an insurgency Bush and Rumsfeld never expected and failed to plan for. Yet Rumsfeld, the only member of Bush’s cabinet with actual job security, effectively responded with “too bad.”
You’ll notice from the AP feed that Army Spc. Thomas Wilson’s comment was not the exaggerated complaint of one man. His question, the AP noted, elicited “a big cheer…from the approximately 2,300 soldiers.” And yet, Rumsfeld was unmoved. Be happy with what you’ve got, Rummy said, because you don’t have any other choice. It’s literally disgusting.
Anyone who votes Republican because it’s the “pro-military” party just isn’t paying attention.