Producing a falsehood

Rumsfeld yesterday, when asked by troops about getting more armored Humvees:

It's a matter of production and capability of doing it. As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want.

Bloomberg today:

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."

(snip)

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."

It's been two years since this war started. We read in the paper every day of bombing attacks directed toward our troops. And still our Secretary of Defense has yet to ask companies to increase production of armored vehicles. So it's not really a matter of production as Rumsfeld claims, its a matter of admitting you were wrong and making amends, which Rummy doesn't want to do.

And of course, Rumsfeld argued to send over the Army he felt was best, ignoring claims that we sent too few troops and that they were ill-equipped. So that line is a bit of a stretch, too.

And let's not forget our President's words in defending Rumsfeld's claim:

"We expect our troops to have the best possible equipment. If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country I'd want to ask the Secretary of Defense the same question, and that is are we getting the best equipment," he said. "They deserve the best."

Well, that statement now rings false as well. Clearly we expect some of our troops to have the best available equipment, and the rest of the troops can fend for themselves. That's our President. Four more years.