WP,pg1: U.S. Army Battling To Save Equipment: Gear Piles Up at Depots, Awaiting Repair

[DeepModem Mom]

U.S. Army Battling To Save Equipment
Gear Piles Up at Depots, Awaiting Repair
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 5, 2006; Page A01


(Photos By Ann Scott Tyson-The Washington Post)

ANNISTON, Ala. -- Field upon field of more than 1,000 battered M1 tanks, howitzers and other armored vehicles sit amid weeds here at the 15,000-acre Anniston Army Depot -- the idle, hulking formations symbolic of an Army that is wearing out faster than it is being rebuilt.

The Army and Marine Corps have sunk more than 40 percent of their ground combat equipment into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to government data. An estimated $17 billion-plus worth of military equipment is destroyed or worn out each year, blasted by bombs, ground down by desert sand and used up to nine times the rate in times of peace. The gear is piling up at depots such as Anniston, waiting to be repaired.

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, is lobbying hard for more money to repair what he calls the "holes" in his force, saying current war funding is inadequate to make the Army "well." Asked in a congressional hearing this past summer whether he was comfortable with the readiness levels of non-deployed Army units, Schoomaker replied: "No."

Lt. Col. Mike Johnson, a senior Army planner, said: "Before, if a unit was less than C-1," or fully ready, "someone would get fired." Now, he said, that is accepted as combat-zone rotations are sapping all units of gear and manpower. "It's a cost of continuous operations. You can't be ready all the time," he said.

Across the military, scarce equipment is being shifted from unit to unit for training. For example, a brigade of 3,800 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division that will deploy to Iraq next month has been passing around a single training set of 44 Humvees, none of which has the added armor of the Humvees they will drive in Iraq....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/04/AR2006120401347.html

[wakeme2008]

1. I would blame this on Bush EXCEPT

Congress has given the military every dollar they wanted for the past 6 years, Where the Fuck are they spending it?????

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. One guess.

[necso]

2. We have accrued

many types of yet-unpaid costs (deferred, future; economic, diplomatic, etc) in our overseas-adventures; large costs, enormous costs, titanic costs, costs that we'll end-up paying-for for many years, including the cost of:
* The wounded (2x: wounded in body, wounded in mind);
* Damaged/destroyed equipment;
* Diminished military readiness, capabilities, morale;
* The loss of the past, present and future usage of our money, energy, time, etc, for purposes that would better benefit us (indeed, that would benefit us at all);
* Increased national unwillingness to use force even when the circumstances are such that using force promises to be effective and efficient;
* Increased turmoil in the Middle East;
* Increased insecurity (or feelings of insecurity, anyway) worldwide;
* The enhanced power and vitality given to the currents of militarism, intolerance, violence, etc; and
* Our loss of credibility, standing and influence in the world.

Look, the intractable nature of the problem has been obvious to some folks from the very beginning. But even the most well-intentioned folks must now come to terms with the complete and total collapse of any grounds for hope of a good outcome -- much less expectations of the same.

And recognizing this circumstance, we have to cut our losses and move on -- otherwise we'll just accrue more "charges", perhaps to the point of ruin (great, grievous, irreparable harm), and all this to no avail -- and without the excuse that this is hard to see and predict.

Life can be tough; so must we.

[dbt]

3. You'd think the Military Industrial Complex would be DROOLING.

All that beautiful hardware to be replaced or repaired, BILLIONS (excuse me, MORE billions) to be made over the corpses of American forces and Iraqi citizens.

Yet it all sits in the fields, waiting for what? Until we run out of everything, perhaps? At which time GE can quadruple the prices of its jet engines?

I don't get it. The Machine ought to be humming along, cranking out planes and tanks and bombs and cruise missiles--printing money. Yet the broken swords rust in the fields while the Little Fool says "Push on!" Surely the BFEE has not decided to BF the MIC, too!

Somebody help me follow the money here...

:freak:
dbt
Remember New Orleans

[Nihil]

4. It's just sharpening its teeth for the New Year

> Yet it all sits in the fields, waiting for what? Until we run out of
> everything, perhaps? At which time GE can quadruple the prices of its
> jet engines?
>
> Somebody help me follow the money here...

The MIC is sitting back, still digesting the previous billions with a
smug, satisfied burp every now and then. It is also watching, waiting
and preparing its story for the next round of government handouts ...

"But look at the broken-down equipment ... you can't ask our brave
boys & girls to go to war in this stuff? How dare you anti-American
Democrats try to justify their deaths, their injuries for the simple
cause of saving money? No, as Mr.Bush has already demonstrated, the
best thing you can do for the country is to pass this budget bill as
soon as possible."

There will have been a good month of media coverage of junk-heaps like
that in the OP, of stories of how "good ol' American know-how" is just
about keeping the front-line troops mobile and how "our brave warriors"
are at greater risk due to the lack of modern equipment.

You think that this _isn't_ going to happen in January?

[LeftyMom]

8. I think it's probably more of this:

The Army doesn't have the free personnel to diagnose the needed repairs, order the replacement parts and bolt them on. That's very manpower intensive and they're fighting two wars shorthanded.

History tells us that a shorthanded army with long supply lines is a sure loser with otherwise surmountable resistance (guerrilla fighters, a harsh winter, etc.) If I know that with only a community college education, Bush certainly does with so many advisers. He's not incompetent, he's willingly putting his political needs above the security of the country and I think one could make a very good argument that's treasonous.

[Bigmack]

5. Repairs and replacement...

are the kinds of costs that just don't get figured into the "$350 Billion" spent on this goatfuck.

By the time all the gear we leave for the Iranians (not a typo) to use gets replaced, we'll also be short on zeros... we'll have added them to end of the "$350 Billion".

Maybe the US will have to just pull in it's military horns a bit.

Naaaaah!

[TexasLawyer]

6. Wasn't this war supposed to make us MORE secure?

What a joke. An expensive, tragic joke.

[agincourt]

7. This is getting beyond ridiculous,

about 350 billion spent on this war against an enemy with no armor or tactical aircraft. All the damn equipment should have been kept up for what was spent already. Good ole boy enrichment on the scale that Bush/Cheney/Rove have done is downright treason. I doubt if 25% have actually went to the military. The rest was embezzeled by Bush cronies. Sickening.