Linkmeister

DOD fails; people die

A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

The Pentagon has known about the failings of its body armor since the beginning of this war, the article says, but the Marines didn't start buying extra plates until September of last year, and the Army is still deciding which sizes to buy.

Additional forensic studies by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's unit that were obtained by The Times indicate that about 340 American troops have died solely from torso wounds.

Is no one at DOD in his right mind? We've lost over 2,100 men and women over there, and some number of those deaths seem to have been preventable, but weren't because the flipping procurement people can't get off their backsides to make a decision?

Here's some more: the Pentagon contracted with a company in South Carolina (hmm...whose Congressional district, I wonder?) to make new vehicles which apparently deflect roadside bombs. But the company had never mass-produced the things, and it's had problems such that while the contract was awarded in May of last year, the first delivery won't be made until June of this year.

Fire the lot of them. Start with Bush and move down through Cheney, Rumsfeld, and whoever's in charge of acquisitions. This is unbelievable.

Posted by Linkmeister at January 7, 2006 12:01 AM | TrackBack