After four years and over three thousand battlefield deaths (because they aren't counting the lives of American Service Personnel lost off the battlefield, but attributable to the war directly) it should come as no surprise that the self-same raging fucking lunatics who started this war and have done every contortion of logic and rhetorical excess to ensure its continuation in defense of their "legacy" not to mention the bottom-lines of certain Defense Contractor are now truly "showing their support" for the troops.
The Army is working to fill a shortfall in Iraq of thousands of advanced Humvee armor kits designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs -- including a rising threat from particularly lethal weapons linked to Iran and known as "explosively formed penetrators" (EFP) -- that are now inflicting 70 percent of the American casualties in the country, according to U.S. military and civilian officials.
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The Army declined to disclose details on the number of kits installed and where the shortages exist.
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Fewer than half the Army's roughly 14,500 up-armored Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan have been outfitted with the bolt-on version of FRAG Kit 5. Thousands of the permanent kits have been flown to Iraq and are being installed at 11 locations around the country, officials said. Over the next six months, the Army plans to produce 5,000 more Humvees with the permanent kits already installed, Anderson said.
Overall, Army equipment backlogs had grown so severe, Anderson said, such a troop increase would not have been possible last year. He said the Army is in a far better position now, thanks to an infusion of $17 billion last year to replace and repair equipment.
The loathsome fuckers who claim that legislative debate on the fate of the war is going to "hurt morale" need to consider something else: the shortage of proper equipment does more than just hurt morale, it gets troops killed.
Gee, I wonder which one is more on the mind of a young man or woman going out on a patrol or convoy? The debate to bring them home from the crucible they were tossed into without proper equipment or knowing that the vehicle they are riding out of the gate in is probably not going to adequately protect them?
