Home > OPEN LETTER TO SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DONALD RUMSFELD

OPEN LETTER TO SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DONALD RUMSFELD

by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 14 December 2004
15 comments

Wars and conflicts Governments USA

The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld

Secretary of Defense

1000 Defense Pentagon

Room 3E880

Washington, DC 20301

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld,

For more than a year, now, I have corresponded with you several times seeking basic protective equipment for our troops, including body armor and uparmored Humvees. In your responses, you expressed to me your commitment to protecting our troops. However, your callous remarks yesterday call that commitment into serious question.

Your comments in Kuwait yesterday (December 7th, 2004) showed - with crystal clarity - the halfhearted approach you as Secretary of Defense took in preparing for this war. The bottom line is that you sent our troops into war without adequate supplies of body armor and without a sufficient number of uparmored Humvees and other vehicles. Despite conventional military thinking, you tried to fight this war on the quick and on the cheap. Even after it became painfully obvious to you that our troops desperately needed this equipment, you failed to take the lead in increasing production of body armor and uparmored vehicles for our troops. It wasn’t until Congressional pressure forced you to do so that you took action.

The young soldier’s assertion yesterday that he and his comrades have had to, “dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass” to armor their vehicles should be a call to arms for you and the rest of the Pentagon to do whatever is necessary to get our troops the equipment they need to prosecute the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It should also be a mark of disgrace for you and the President. Instead, your staff has spent the last 24 hours belittling the concerns of our troops. Telling our troops that we, “go to war with the Army [we] have,” is pathetic and shameful. It may be true in the case of future or advanced weaponry, but there’s no excuse for your utter failure to make certain our troops had the most basic protection available before going to war.

Despite months of buildup before the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon did not increase production of Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) until after the war began, delaying full deployment of the armor until a year after the start of the war. And despite months of guerilla warfare and attacks on US convoys and standard Humvees, it wasn’t until a year and a half after the war in Iraq began that the Pentagon asked O’Garra Hess, the sole Pentagon supplier of uparmored Humvees, to increase production to maximum capacity.

Earlier this year, I was contacted by the family support group of the 660th Transportation Company, an Army Reserve unit and its detachment, deployed from Cadiz and Zanesville, Ohio. As you know, the mission of the 660th is to deliver fuel in semi-tractors and tankers. Since the approximately 140 reservists of the 660th Transportation Company arrived in Fallujah, Iraq in February 2004, four have been killed in the line of duty. I have received a letter signed by fathers, mothers, husbands, wives and other family members of the 660th pleading for help. And what they are asking for Mr. Secretary is simply that the Department of Defense immediately armor all vehicles these reservist use so that no more soldiers lose their lives.

The following is an excerpt from the letter I received: “We do not know if you are aware that there is armor available to be added to the trucks that the commanders have refused to let the soldiers apply to the trucks. This is available and made to protect our troops, yet the commanders feel it is more important to bring those trucks back to the United States. It is our understanding that if the trucks are altered, they will not bring them back to the United States. Our thought is that the commanders believe it is more important to bring the trucks back to the United States than our soldiers...We were led to believe when we entrusted our precious family members to fight in this war, that everything possible would be done to protect them. The soldiers believed this also...Let us not lose one more life that could possibly be saved with the proper equipment.”

Mr. Secretary, what is your response to these families? What will you say to the brave soldiers they have selflessly given to protect our nation? You clearly have the power to make a difference in protecting our soldiers and seeing that they receive the best possible equipment in the field. I hope your answer to them will be more considerate and well-thought out. The families of the 660th Transportation Company and I await your response.

Sincerely,

Ted Strickland

Member of Congress

Forum posts

  • Congressman Strickland,

    The troops go into battle knowing the consequences, and unfortunately war is a dirty business. I’m doing all I can, right now, to ensure the safety of Americans. You can rest assured on that. Body armour is provided, and whereever possible provided on a requisite basis. The officers know this. We will prevail against terror, and........ I’m richer than you. HA HA HA

    Donald Rumsfeld

  • At last count, around 22,000 out of a 30,000-vehicle fleet had armor plating. It’s a little short but hardly an "utter failure" as Rep. Strickland has so eloquently flatulated.

  • Strickland, a congressman, should know better than anyone how well armed the army is. As part of that great legislative body, they are the ones who approve the expenditures for the military. If he finds that our troops are not well equipped and starts pointing fingers, he should start pointing that finger at himself first.

  • thank you, sir for the concern you have for our brave men & women serving in this war. My husband was in the Middle East during the time of Clinton. Our best friend is there now..it is his 4th time in a war zone since joining the military in 1989. I hope people in this country are finally waking up and realizing what this war is really all about....this is why the necessary planning was not done that would have ensured our troop’s safety....the Bush Admin. created an opportunity, but in their haste to move forgot about the most precious thing of all: our troops.

    May God bless and keep them all.

    • These people are not brave men and women, they are a bunch of STUPID murdering bastards like that dumb fuck that sent them there. I hope they all get blown to kingdom come and never come back to my great country that does not need the likes of these paid killers. If they do manage to come back here God forbid, I hope they will be greeted with scorn and contempt like the Vietnam killers were.

    • They are braver than shitstains like you who take for granted the rights they have to spew this type of bullshit. Keep frothing, you dog-felching waste of oxygen - those of us sane people in the world will protect your worthless asses in spite of your complete and total idiocy, since we believe even retards like you should still have the right to live.

      Beautify America - kill a Bush hater.

    • Hey toilet paper...since when are you brave and protecting anyone??? You are the same shithead that is too chickenshit to go over and fight in Bush’s war. The dirty mouthed coward that keeps saying "we" when HE means "they"...Now get your yellow belly down to the nearest recruiter and sign up to go fight for your hero. Put up or shut up. You are all alone here and nothing more than a bad smell. You need to get some self respect and go murder some children for Bush.

    • This says it all:
      http://www.ucomics.com/stuartcarlson/2004/12/10/

    • Try again:,

      http://www.ucomics.com/stuartcarlson/2004/12/10/

    • Dear Skidmark,

      It’s just as much your war as it is the righteous ones who know better. Be honest - you wouldn’t have anything to protest if there was no war.

      Of course, asking you to be honest about anything would be like asking a snake to stop being a reptile. No man is an island unto themselves and parasites like you never had an original thought - without the DU and BuzzFlash you’d be an empty vessel.

      Regards, The Ugly American

    • Hey Ugly, This is no way MY war, Bush and garbage like you are the immoral deadbrains who wanted this mess so you own it. Killer at heart, what is wrong with your cowardly ass that you are not over there target practicing on the children? Now is your big chance to annihiliate some innocents and prove yourself a real Bush supporter and a real Christian, you could even get a ticket to heaven....or are you just another chickenshit like your heor?

    • Dear Retard,

      This isn’t about me. Don’t worry about what I am doing, as much as what you should be doing. Judging from your bad grammar and misspellings, it looks like you SHOULD be doing your homework so you can pass the 9th grade this semester instead of smacking a total stranger on the Web.

      Kindly go reinsert our head back into your ass and waddle away, chump. Until you can make an argument without resorting to ad hominems, I might listen to you. Wipe the froth from your chin, too.

      Regards, The Ugly American

    • Hey Ugly, here is a challenge since you think that you are an English language master; correctly spell all of my "misspelled" words and correct my grammer. If you can that is, ha ha ha ha ha, and if you can’t, then put YOUR head back up your butt where it usually resides.