Newsday February 07, 2007
Our men and women in Iraq deserve the best weapons
By James P. Pinkerton
OK, we’re going to “surge” in Iraq. Surge with what? With expendable technology, or with the precious blood of our men and women? Unfortunately, President Bush doesn’t have much of a choice — we have underinvested in the machinery that would boost our prospects for victory.
Today the U.S. battle plan in Iraq and Afghanistan can be summed up in one term: labor-intensive. We send our best war fighters into harm’s way in underarmored vehicles and with insufficient logistical support. Who says so? The U.S. Army. Here’s Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for force development, in The Washington Post on Jan. 30: “We don’t have the (armor) kits, and we don’t have the trucks.”
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was barely right when he said in 2004, “You have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want.” If war comes suddenly, as with Pearl Harbor in 1941, then of course we have to fight immediately with whatever we have. But even then, it’s important to learn lessons and apply them immediately.
Moreover, as the fighting drags on, we would hope that our politicomilitary leadership would rush to embrace the latest in technology, not only to maximize prospects of victory but also to minimize cost in American lives. The 45 months of World War II witnessed an efflorescence of technological developments on the American side, from improved tanks and torpedoes to all-new jet aircraft and even the atomic bomb.
WHERE ARE ADVANCES?
Each innovation was costly but more than worth the money. Has there been a similar evolution of American “miltech” in our 46 months in Iraq? If not, why not?
After nearly four years of fighting. Americans ride around “on patrol.” Are they conducting combat operations, or are they just sitting ducks? OK, moving ducks, but still ducks.
One gets the sad feeling that the Americans, in their high-profile vehicles, will be remembered as the 21st-century equivalent of the 18th-century Redcoats, British soldiers who marched in tidy formation through the forests of the Colonies, vulnerable to American snipers behind trees. The British couldn’t or wouldn’t adapt to the challenge. They lost men, then the war.
Today our armed forces are discovering the latest evolution of American-killing bomb technology, which may have emerged from a laboratory in, say, Iran or Russia. The latest iteration of the improvised explosive device — the cause of most American casualties in Iraq — is known as the explosively formed projectile, a sobering reminder that enemies are evolving their weaponry, and might even be gaining an edge. John Pike of Globalsecurity.org says in USA Today that the EFP “goes through armor like a hot knife through butter.”
Why, after four years, haven’t we figured out how to detect and clear away EFPs and similar weapons? More to the point, why haven’t we transcended the issue of “boots on the ground?” If our leaders had really wanted to succeed in Iraq, they would have spent whatever it took to equip our military with the tools of triumph.
WHAT ABOUT ROBOTS?
Should our warriors perhaps be flying overhead in personalized aircraft? Or should we have automated the battlefield completely, using only expendable robot soldiers?
Such weapons might be the stuff of science fiction, but there’s nothing wrong with a little imagination when trying to win a war. There’s everything wrong with not giving our men and women the best weapons possible, no matter what they cost.
© Copyright 2007, Newsday Inc.
