youre only concerned about the reporter a. not following proper procedure; and/or b. interjecting himself into a discussion that should have been open only to the military and rumsfeld?   you've already agreed it was a question that deserved to be asked...and applause from the other soldiers would seem to indicate it was something they wanted answered.  i have no idea why the guy who asked it needed any coaching--but if what's most problematic in your estimation is the fact a reporter was involved, you're right. 

 it would have been better for all concerned if the soldier (wilson) had done it of his own accord.  if nothing else, there wouldnt be a hook for mrc, newsmax, etc to re-spin the topic and confuse people like drmiler et al into thinking everyone in iraq is now driving around fully armored cuz the last 20 vehicles belonging to this unit were uparmored within the 24 hour period following the incident.  (please note the quoted text below describing the specs for the factory armor as well as pointing out the kits do not provide an equal measure of protection; the undersides of some of the field uparmored vehicles arent protected.)

of course i dont think the president and defense secretary should be micromanaging the war.  at the same time, i can't help but feel they didnt do much in the way of management to begin with.   

im not sure if you agree with the thrust of drmiler's sources that the problem now goes away because the final 20 vehicles have been armored.  i certainly dont. especially in light of the fact that there are still several thousand unarmored and many more sorta armored humvees in service in iraq.  as well as 800 soldiers further in harm's way than is necessary because they havent been provided with state-of-the-art body armor. 

im not gonna speculate how many casualties have resulted from what was obviously very poor planning. one is one too many.   it's not as if the insurgency couldnt have been anticipated...or wasnt anticipated.  while you can disqualify woodward and all of the others whose reports--individually or collectively, because they seem fairly consistent in this regard--characterized the planning of the invasion as overly unrealistically optimistic (to give the whitehouse the benefit of the doubt), ive yet to see anyone independent of the administration asserting anything to the effect that there was due prudence or caution on the part of anyone BUT powell.

personally i think the 'mission accomplished' banner on the lincoln was a pretty decent indication of just how far outta touch this administration was.  if they truly believed that to be the case--or soon would be--i dont guess they woulda been much concerned about the unarmored vehicles.

that's only speculation on my part, of course.   what isnt speculation is the fact that 21 months into this, there still are several thousand unarmored humvees in the field.  it also seems there wasnt a big push to change that prior to the matter being brought to light once again as a result of wilson's (or the reporter's) questions.  im basing that conclusion on statements from the contractor and the pentagon issued the day of the lil rumsfeld q&a...and statements issued four days later:  

Armor Holdings Inc., the sole supplier of protective plates for the Humvee military vehicles used in Iraq, said it could increase output by as much as 22 percent per month with no investment and is awaiting an order from the Army.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday the Army was working as fast as it can and supply is dictated by ``a matter of physics, not a matter of money.''

Jacksonville, Florida-based Armor Holdings last month told the Army it could add armor to as many as 550 of the trucks a month, up from 450 vehicles now, Robert Mecredy, president of the company's aerospace and defense group said in a telephone interview today.

``We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month,'' Mecredy said in the interview. ``I've told the customer that and I stand ready to do that.''

Armor Holdings has already boosted output from 60 vehicles a month a year ago, said Mecredy, 58. As a result of the increased output, Armor Holdings has cut the price for the armor its supplies for the trucks to $58,000 per vehicle, from $72,000 per vehicle a year ago, Mecredy said.

Tesia William, a spokeswoman for the Army Materiel Command, which handles the armored Humvee program, had no immediate comment on the status of orders.

Production of the armor needs to be coordinated with output of the actual trucks by AM General LLC of South Bend, Indiana, Mecredy said. AM General spokesman Lee Woodward also said that truck output could also be increased.

``If they ordered more trucks, we'd build more trucks,'' Woodward said. ``We're not close to capacity. It might take some time to ramp up but we can do it.''

Woodward declined to provide exact details on production capacity.

The main reason there isn't enough armor is because the military has underestimated its own needs, said Meghan Keck, spokeswoman for Senator Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat. Bayh wrote a letter to Rumsfeld in October calling for a more accurate estimate of Humvee needs.

``If the Army would be up front about the number of Humvees needed, the companies would be able to set their production accordingly to meet the need,'' Keck said in a phone interview.

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four days later, this appeared in bloomberg:
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Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Armor Holdings Inc.'s order from the U.S. Army last week to accelerate monthly production of heavily armored Humvee military vehicles won't increase the total number of the vehicles destined for Iraq, the Army said.

The Army's plan is to complete 8,105 ``up-armored'' Humvees by March 2005, unchanged from before the Dec. 10 order, Army spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Pamela Hart said in an e-mailed response to questions from Bloomberg News. Jacksonville, Florida- based Armor Holdings said Dec. 10 the Army had asked it to raise monthly output to 550 vehicles by March, from 450 now.

``We're increasing the rate of production, not the total number of vehicles,'' Hart said. She declined to provide additional information.

More than half of the more than 1,200 U.S. troops killed and more than 9,000 wounded in Iraq have come from insurgent attacks on the vehicles with homemade bombs and rocket-propelled grenades. Some Humvees to which the Army has added armor are vulnerable to bombs planted on roads because the underside is unarmored.

Last week, Army Specialist Thomas Wilson, a soldier at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, confronted U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during a ``town meeting'' event. ``Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles,'' Wilson asked Rumsfeld on Dec. 8.

`Physics,' Not Money

Rumsfeld replied that ``you have to go to war with the Army you have,'' and said that providing more of the vehicles was ``a matter of physics, not a matter of money.''

The day after Rumsfeld's comments, Robert Mecredy, president of Armor Holding's aerospace and defense group, said the company could increase production by 22 percent, or 100 vehicles per month. The Army's total order will be completed by March.

Members of both houses of Congress have said protecting soldiers should be the military's highest priority.

``I think there was the ability to increase production significantly if they wanted to,'' said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Dec. 10. The Pentagon was ``saying, `Don't put the money in the budget, because we can't spend it, we can't produce them.' It turns out, they can produce a lot more.''

2,000 Pounds of Steel

South Bend, Indiana-based AM General LLC builds the vehicles and Armor Holdings adds about 2,000 pounds of steel plate and bulletproof glass instead of the standard zip-up windows. The work is done in Fairfield, Ohio.

The ``up-armored'' vehicles can stop armor-piercing 7.62- millimeter rounds, provide protection from the blast of a 155- millimeter shell exploding overhead and could withstand a 12- pound mine detonation under the front axle.

The Army says 5,910 of the 8,105 newly manufactured, or ``up- armored'' Humvees have been delivered to Iraq and Kuwait.

The Army says it wants 12,372 add-on armor kits for existing Humvees in Iraq and Kuwait of which 9,135 have been delivered to the region.

Armor Holdings has made 7,500 of the kits so far, Mecredy said last week. The armor kits provide less protection from bullets and blasts than the ``up-armored'' version direct from the factory, he said. He said he couldn't give details on the different level of protection offered by each.

`Do Whatever You Need'

``The clear message from our committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee is to do whatever you need for our troops,'' Representative Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat and member of the House Armed Services Committee, said on Dec. 10. ``The uniformed military has always done a better job in estimating the threat than Rumsfeld. I think they've been intimidated into not asking for more troops and not demanding more equipment.''

Armor Holdings' Dec. 10 statement had only indicated monthly production would increase, without reference to the total number of vehicles on order.

my feeling is it doesnt make any difference who asked the question as long as it was asked and something is finally being done

mighty white--and mighty christian--of you

my primary concern isnt the additional 20 vehicles for this specific unit.  i've never been to moore's site btw. if that's what's responsible for the sclerotic nonsense quoted above, youd be well advised to avoid it as well.

so lemme get this straight.  the lincoln delayed making port on the day in question and the president donned a flightsuit, jumped into a plane (thereby putting us all at what could only be called foolishly unnecessary risk since he is, after all, the only president we have--this isnt a dig at his flying skills, but a reasonable assessment of his judgement; the reason we call em flight accidents is because nobody anticipates a plane crashing) and made a point of announcing the purported end of combat in front of that banner by coincidence?  

there's a reason that whole drama failed to be used as the centerpiece of his 2004 campaign (and if you dont believe that was the original intention, i've grossly underestimated your capacity for naivete). 

so much potential for mischief; so little mean-spiritedness in my heart today. 

(dont forget the big end-of-the-year sale goin on this week at dupes'r'us:  four magic beans for only one cow!)