|
These 18-karat klinkers might
be ideal weapons to fight a now-extinct Soviet bear, but they
aren’t worth a bucket of spit in our present long-term
struggle against terrorism.
The price tag for just these
four wonder weapons runs about half a trillion dollars – great
for war racketeers, political slush funds and other pork, and
the general officers’ big-buck,
military-industrial-congressional-complex-sponsored
post-military careers, but not so good for the GI Joes and
Jills operating in the killing zones without the right stuff.
The other reason for the vest
shortfall is standard senior brass stupidity. Two years before
our troops waded into Iraq, those who planned the campaign and
their top logisticians set the IBA production rate at a number
based on vests for the “dismounted fighting soldier” and
“combat vehicle crewman” – a mere 1,600 units per month. By
jump-off time, the production requirement shot up to 19,000
sets per month – too little, too late – to provide all
divisional- and separate regimental-level combat units with
IBA.
The flawed conventional-war
thinking must have been that the Pentagon's $400-
billion-a-year “shock ‘n’ awe” machine would so flatten
Saddam’s $1 billion-a-year ragtag army that the guerrilla war
predicted by many military analysts wouldn’t happen. Because
the tens of thousands of supporters providing the beans,
bullets, medicine and maintenance wouldn’t be in harm’s way
under this scenario, they wouldn’t need the new 16-pound vest
that protects against fragmentation splinters and up to a
.30-caliber armor-piecing rifle round.
The Army’s leadership owes a
one-on-one apology to the families of the dead and the
hundreds of support and service troops awarded Purple Hearts
as a result of this criminal negligence. Not to mention the
reimbursement that should be offered to everyone who purchased
a vest for a serving loved one.
Last week, Maj. Gary Tallman,
the Pentagon’s point man on IBA, told me, “The Army has
allocated $420 million and assigned top priority to ensuring
that every soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq or who will be
heading that way has one of the new vests.”
The good news is that Tallman
appears to be telling the truth. A platoon of sources in Iraq
confirms that this isn’t another Pentagon fairy tale – it’s
happening. Soldiers from newly-deployed units say they were
issued the $1,500 vest before leaving the USA or in Kuwait
just prior to heading for the badlands of Iraq.
Seven production lines, from
Costa Mesa, Calif., to Pittsfield, Mass., are busy churning
out 25,000 IBA sets – the vest and accompanying ballistic
plates – per month. A year after the war started, production
is finally meeting demand. Talk about ready, fire, aim on the
part of the planners.
My guess is that the Pentagon
brass pushed the pedal to the metal on IBA production because
Congress, moms, pops and the media have been on their tails
since this shameful shortfall came to light.
But many soldiers say that
there’s now a musical-vests shell game in play. For example,
when the 21st Infantry out of Hawaii replaced the Europe-based
173rd Airborne, the battle-seasoned paratroopers were ordered
to give the newbies their body armor. An Airborne sergeant
said: “Once we get back to Italy, we’ll again become the NATO
fire brigade. What happens if we jump into a fight somewhere
around the world and we don't have our vests?”
Tallman says such elite
ready-force units that stay on airstrip alert at places like
Fort Bragg, N.C., and Vicenza, Italy, are the next priority
and will be properly outfitted before moving out.
Let’s hope so. For sure I’ll be
watching with my whistle at high port.
|
