Military scrambles to meet repair demands

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=19c38ae17fa23da2&cat=c08dd24cec417021

Military scrambles to meet repair demands
Pentagon grapples with longer, costlier war than expectedBy Jonathan Weisman

Updated: 12:06 a.m. ET Dec. 13, 2004TEXARKANA, Texas - In muddy gravel lots, along weedy railroad tracks and in grassy fields, the flotsam of war is washing up at a sprawling Army-run repair post: five- and 10-ton trucks, road graders, river boats, forklifts, coils of tank track, piles of road wheels and Humvees by the score, doors pocked with shrapnel scars, windows riddled with bullet holes or frosted white by explosive heat, their fenders gashed by rocket-propelled grenades, their crews' names still etched on the windshields.



When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was confronted by a soldier in Kuwait recently about why troops in Iraq had to scrounge for parts, he might have pointed to the Red River Army Depot on the outskirts of Texarkana for the answer. Here, in unadorned open-air factories, bustling hives of workers struggle through budget limits and a burgeoning repair load to keep the troops equipped.

Growing repair bill
Twenty-one months after U.S. forces entered Iraq, the Defense Department is only now coming to terms with the equipment shortages caused by the prolonged fighting there. The Pentagon has prepared an unprecedented emergency spending plan totaling nearly $100 billion — as much as $30 billion more than expected as recently as October — say senior defense officials and congressional budget aides. About $14 billion of that would go to repairing, replacing and upgrading an increasingly frayed arsenal.
snip...
Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Northern Virginia think tank, said Rumsfeld will not face reality.

"He knows what the situation is, but he has been unready to change his plans," Thompson said. Army officials, speaking for the Defense Department, agree their task is challenging. Repairing equipment while outfitting new Army brigades means "digging tanks out of depot yards that haven't been moved in five years," Motsek said.

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This War is costing Billions and Billions and Billions!!!

[Komrade _azul]

1. Where can you send spare tires for peace?

;-)

[ugarte]

2. I'll throw in a pair of windshield wipers

Anything for freedom.

[readmylips]

3. JFK carrier back in port and ...

it's a total mess. How much is it going to cost to fix that baby?