Humvee improvements fall on soldiers

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/01/14/iraq.humvees.ap/index.html

Soldiers exposed to Iraq's increasingly lethal roadside bombs, which can rip through armored Humvees, are drawing on wartime experience and stateside expertise to protect their vehicles with stronger armor and thermal detection cameras.

The upgrades are being done by individual soldiers and units as the Pentagon decides how Humvees should be changed, and follow public criticism of the Bush administration for not armoring all Humvees ahead of the war.

Nearly three years after rolling into Iraq in trucks covered in many instances only by canvas roofs, the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade is adding extra layers of armor to its Humvees.

Col. Michael Steele, the brigade's commander, said he ordered the improvements because the insurgents' roadside bombs -- known to the military as "improvised explosive devices" -- have become bigger and harder to detect.

[rodeodance]

1. it is a new tax deductiable item also. article was on DU

about a week ago. partially deductable at that.

[Rose Siding]

2. Those trucks covered only by canvas reminded me-

snip>
Q: We were told by -- (off mike) -- that you were going to be deploying sentinel chickens to Kuwait. (Laughter.) And we learned over the weekend that a large chunk of the first batch of these things that you sent over there died, for reasons unknown to anyone. How seriously should we take the sentinel chicken phenomenon? And how many would you be deploying if it is something that we should take seriously? And how effective are sentinel chickens?

Reeves: Well, let me take that one on. First of all, it was the Marine Corps that was deploying the chickens, not the Army. (Laughter.) I'm sure this is well-intended, and I'm sure it's based on the idea of the canaries in the mine, where, you know, when the canary had enough methane, why, the canary stopped singing. That's an important point because if the miners waited until the canary was dead, they'd probably be dead, too.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/usa/2003/usa-030303-dod01.htm

That, along with the expose done about the notoriously faulty protective gear, AND congressional testimony that wmd were much less likely to ever be used against the US if we didn't invade Iraq, was some of the most convincing evidence, to me, that the wmd threat was never taken seriously.