The top U.S. commander in Iraq (news - web sites) complained to the Pentagon (news - web sites) last winter that his supply situation was so poor that it threatened Army troops' ability to fight, according to an official document that has surfaced only now.
"All of a sudden, at the end of July <2003>, the insurgency started to do that IED business all over Iraq," he noted, using the acronym for "improvised explosive device," the military's term for roadside bombs. In response, the pace, or "operating tempo," for U.S. troops jumped, causing them to use their tanks and other armored vehicles at much higher rates than had been expected.
He also protested in his letter, sent Dec. 4 to the number two officer in the Army, with copies to other senior officials, that his soldiers still needed protective inserts to upgrade 36,000 sets of body armor but that their delivery had been postponed twice in the month before he was writing. There were 131,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the time.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/washpost/20041018/ts_washpost/a40321_2004oct17&e=3
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(858 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
