In the latest example of our forces in Iraq being kitted out with dangerously sub-standard equipment, Newsweek has found that the Army deployed its newest toy, the Stryker armored vehicle, into the conflict even after its chief weapons tester judged that the Stryker wouldn’t stand up to a hit from a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG):
Tom Christie was worried. It was the fall of 2003, and the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester had noted problems with the Army’s pride and joy, the new Stryker Armored Vehicle. The $4 billion program was seen as the vanguard of the lighter, high-speed Army of the future. But even with new add-on armor, the Stryker “did not meet Army requirements” against rocket-propelled grenades in tests, Christie wrote in his 2003 annual report. Now the Pentagon was about to deploy the first 300 Strykers to Iraq while an insurgency raged.
So Christie did something unusual: he sent a classified letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s office urging the military to be very cautious about where in Iraq it deployed the Stryker. The response? “I was slapped down,” says the straight-talking Christie. “It was: “What are we supposed to do with this [letter]? - Are you trying to embarrass somebody?’
So eager were some Army brass to push the Stryker, critics say, that they paid three times as much for it as the competing bid and lowered its performance requirements whenever it failed testing. And even though the Stryker is largely untried, Gen. Larry Ellis of Army Forces Command sent a March 30 memo to the chief of staff asking for more money for the program as far ahead as fiscal year 2008-09.
Not being able to take a hit from an RPG is a Big Deal
Well, yes it is, isn't it?
So, why push so hard to get the Strykers into Iraq? Newsweek also reports that the main rationale is because of another procurement debacle รข€” the shortage of armored HMMWVs (“Humvees”).
It's like a nightmare circus, eh?
No comments:
Post a Comment