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-Caveat Lector- US troops turn on Rumsfeld over scrap metal armyFrom Elaine Monaghan and Tim Reid in Washington
Times Online (UK)
December 09, 2004
AMERICAN soldiers bound for Iraq confronted Donald Rumsfeld yesterday, letting their anger at a shortage of armour, extended deployments and discrimination against part-time forces boil to the surface in a rare public display.One combat soldier asked the US Defence Secretary why âwe soldiersâ had to âdig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metalâ to make their vehicles more secure.
A huge cheer reverberated around the Kuwaiti hangar where about 2,300 troops, most members of the National Guard and reserves, had gathered at Camp Buehring.[CBC: "Following an awkward silence Rumsfeld replied, 'I missed the first part of your question, could you repeat it for me?'"]Mr Rumsfeld said: âAs you know, you go to war with the army you have, and not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time . . . You can have all the armour in the world on a tank and it can still be blown up.âMajor-General Gary Speer, deputy commander of the forces in Kuwait, said that he had never heard of soldiers scavenging for metal, despite repeated reports that troops had resorted to unconventional solutions to armour shortage.Another soldier said that active-duty army units sometimes had received better equipment than their part-time colleagues. A woman soldier asked how much longer she would have to serve under a âstop lossâ order, which has barred many civilian soldiers from going home at the expected date.Mr Rumsfeld suggested that the soldier had known the score when she signed up.âStop loss has been used by the military for years and years,â he said. The point was unit cohesion. In war it was better for the unit if someone did not suddenly return home because their contract had expired.Mr Rumsfeld was at the camp to deliver a pep-talk on Iraq. He urged troops to ignore the critics and to âwin the test of willsâ against Iraqi insurgents. This week 23 reservists were punished for refusing to deliver fuel to a base in Iraq, claiming that their vehicles lacked adequate protection.A damning testimony that was made public yesterday added to Mr Rumsfeldâs woes. Two US military observers witnessed the brutal treatment of Iraqi prisoners in June, months after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal broke, and were then threatened and told to keep quiet about it.A letter of complaint sent by the head of the Pentagonâs Defence Intelligence Agency, alleges in graphic detail abuse by a secret Special Operations interrogation unit, Task Force 6-26, a unit not officially admitted to by the Pentagon.According to the report, filed by Vice-Admiral Lowell Jacoby, his officials photographed the abuse, then had their pictures confiscated. They saw detainees with burn marks on their backs, bruises and suffering from kidney pain. The American Civil Liberties Union obtained the documents by suing the Bush Administration under the Freedom of Information Act.www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at:
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