Military Equipment Woes

by Andrew

Back in the days before the war, the biggest thing heavy units did was a rotation to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. Located in the Mojave Desert not far from Death Valley, the NTC had a dedicated opposing force (OPFOR) and enough space to conduct maneuvers at the brigade level, the only place in the world the Army could train such maneuvers effectively. One of the painful parts of going to the NTC was that you didn't bring much of your own equipment: the NTC maintained two fleets of vehicles for units rotating through, so units would draw vehicles prior to entering 'the box,' and would then have to turn the vehicles back in once the rotation was over, a painful process that usually took at least twice as long as drawing the vehicles because they were in poor shape due to the amount of use they saw. When I made my last trip to the NTC in 2000, however, my battalion was able to maintain the NTC vehicles to an extremely high standard, because back at Fort Carson we had one of the oldest fleets of M1s in the Army, so we knew all the tricks for making old, worn out vehicles run.

Those tricks are likely to come in handy over the next few years, as our old vehicles would probably look like new compared to the fleets that we have been using in Iraq over the last three years. Vehicles in combat not only face the not-insignificant dangers of battle damage, they also get a great deal more use than vehicles see during normal garrison operations, and every mile they're driven is that much more wear and tear that increases the odds of the vehicles breaking down. I have no idea how close we are to a breaking point with our equipment, but the issue at least is getting a little attention in today's piece in the Washington Post. In addition to the human costs of war, war takes a tremendous toll on equipment, and trying to get all that equipment back into service is a costly and time-consuming endeavor that hasn't been a priority for some time.

It is to be hoped, of course, that we won't need all this equipment for combat for some time to come once we finally withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. But the reason the U.S. Army does so well in combat when we go to war is that we have spent so much time training with our equipment in the time leading up to the war. Once the war is over, we're still going to have hundreds of thousands of soldiers who need to train on this equipment, and Congress and the Bush administration need to step up and start taking action to make sure that we'll be able to do so. Congress appears to have taken a first step by committing additional funds to repair operations this fiscal year, but that is only a start.

Anyone who has followed the history of the war well-remembers the complaints made about the equipment the military took into battle at the start of the war. Soldiers had inadequate body armor, there was a serious shortage of uparmored HMMWVs, and so on. While the Bush administration got a lot of the blame for that, the fact is that responsibility for those shortfalls covers a lot more ground than any one administration. It takes years to properly equip an army, and the shortfalls people decried at the start of the war had accumulated over years, when Congress and different administrations decided that the military had what it needed to fight and win on the battlefield. It's important to remember that when this war is over: if people are really serious about not sending soldiers into battle with inadequate equipment, that means we're going to have to commit some serious money to stockpiling the right equipment for the next war, and keeping it properly maintained. That means more uparmored HMMWVs and body armor. It means looking into a replacement for the M1 and M2. It means not only buying the right equipment, but getting it into the hands of soldiers quickly so they can train with it before they go into battle.

The incoming Democratic Congress no doubt has a lot of things they want to do rather than look into making sure the military is really prepared for combat. But if they're serious about their complaints about the Bush administration, then Chairman Skelton has a lot of hard work ahead of him. I look forward to seeing how seriously he takes that charge.

Cross-posted at Andrew Olmsted.

Comments

[Ugh]

Before I read the post, good to see you back.

[Francis]

i join Ugh in welcoming you back.

good post. but just to be a little bit political, (a) shouldn't the last several budgets been already ramping up repair and replacement and (b) doesn't the President get a great deal of deference on the allocation of military spending, especially during war time?

follow up question: i didn't really understand the dispute between the Army, the SecDef and the GAO regarding the budget for fiscal '07. Can you shed some light?

[KCinDC]

Welcome back, Andrew. I'll try not to be too obnoxious.

[spartikus]

Hooray, Andrew's back!

[John Thullen]

Welcome back, Andrew.

Very good post.

Two thoughts:

I would like to see a tax increase, or surcharge, across the board, to fund the equipment shortfalls.

Second, as an individual without military experience, what I find interesting about our unadequate, beat-up equipment, is that guerilla forces and insurgencies are able to kick butt with their own jerry-rigged. flimsy. hit and run, equipment stuck together with chewing gum and sealing wax.

And I suspect an insurgency, like the Iraqi one, could do the same against shiny new technology.

If the U.S. were invaded by a highly-equipped foreign force, I suspect too that an American insurgency on our home soil could kick the invaders' butts over time with equipment sponged from abandoned minivans, Dairy Queen soda fountain equipment, and I-pods. Or at least make their lives so miserable that the taxpayers and parents of their soldiers get fed up enough to force their leaders to withdraw their invasion force.

(Snark on) Then we Americans could reconstitute our government and vote to cut taxes AND buy the new shiny stuff. (Snark off).

Again, welcome back.

[Dantheman]

Welcome back, and excellent post.

[dmbeaster]

Re-equiping is going to be a bitch. As for past laxness, to what extent is this a problem in the military itself caused by career officers -- that the procurement process greatly favors the big sexy systems over this ordinary grunt stuff? Is anyone in the military saying spend a few billion less on missle defense in favor of this nuts and bolts stuff? Maybe, but I have not read anything to that effect.

As for body armor and uparmored Humvees, was there any past history of Congress declining military requests to allocate more in this area (before 2003)? My half-baked impression on this issue was that these areas were deficient primarily because the army had not sought to equip itself for the grinding low-tech occupation activities which would stress the need for body armor and armored Humvees. And why has the response been so slow since 2003 to fill this need? Is it primarily the Bush led Pentagon not pushing for it (which again, is my half-baked impression).

Would love more details from your unique perspective.

p.s. -- I live in California and love the desert area around Fort Irwin, though I would imagine your impression may be different due to the reason for being there (and I hope it was not in the heat of summer).

[hilzoy]

Welcome back! (though I did have some hint this was coming ;) ) I agree with the post, the need for Democrats to step up to the plate on this one, and also the bafflement about why we haven't been doing this for the past four or so years. (Oh, all right, I know the answer: Bush didn't want to make the wars seem any more expensive than he had to. Once again, politics triumphs over actual need.)

I suspect that this will require cutting some major weapons system that's currently in the pipeline. I'd love to get Andrew's perspective on this: my sense is that Rumsfeld et al haven't been making hard choices about whether we actually need all the systems we're currently planning for, but it's not my area of expertise.

Also, I've always suspected that we over-spend on technology and under-spend not just on things like boots and tank treads, but also on things like peacekeeping, because there isn't nearly as much money in them, and thus they don't have lobbyists working for them. (Or: not so many lobbyists.) If anyone who knows more than I do can speak to this, I'd love to hear it.

Welcome back, Andrew!

[Doctor Science]

Hi Andrew, I'm glad you're back, not least because I just posted a review of a book on the military that I'd love to hear your opinion on.

I'm guessing that hilzoy is right, and that aspects of defense that aren't corporate feeding troughs are likely to be comparatively underfunded. I think there's also an element that "sexy", cool shiny things that go zoooom and booooom get more funding than they deserve, due to a video game mentality for which IMHO Rumsfeld is the poster boy.

[spartikus]

Concur with the comments re: sexy systems win out.

Other than to replace units suffering from wear and tear, why does the US need a new main battle tank? I thought they were relatively ineffective for the type of operation Iraq is. Which is the the type of operation that will be the mainstay for the next generation.

[Jay C]

Hi Andrew, glad to have you back - and drawing our attention to a serious military issue. I'm sure it was less of a surprise to you, but I read the WaPo piece on military depots with a sense of amazement (if not shock). In a "wartime" situation (and one, moreover, where conventional "ground-pounding" is so large a facet of it) it seems to me incredible that the Army/Marines would have so much heavy equipment offline for repair/refurbishment - or that the DoD apparently has skimped so badly on funding such a necessary function.

But to echo the other comments: regardless of the long-terms trends in military procurement/supply/repair-etc. funding; hasn't the Bush 43/Rumsfeld doctrine of replacing human "assets" with technology (and the more humans with higher technology the better) aggravated the problem to a large degree?

I'm just a humble civilian, but I have been reading for years about how The Pentagon has been looking to boost the country's military effectiveness,maintain military superiority and, concommitantly, reduce potential human casualties, by replacing GI Joe/Jane (and their prosaic mechanical equipment) with robots, computers and drones; all securely linked and operating in real time from safely-protected bunkers.

While I have no idea how far along such plans have progressed; it only makes sense that emphasizing the development of a certain type/class of -expensive- weapons system(s) is going to have to short the funding somewhere else: the big question, is how that shortfall can be made up? Or is the Pentagon simply going to focus even more on the gee-whiz wartech - and let the tank treads fall where they may?

[john miller]

Welcome back and I agree, an excellent post about a subject that has gotten too little notice.

My son just got posted to a position that oversees equipment reconditioning at Fort Lewis, WA, Alaska, Hawaii and Japan. I will be interested in what he has to say about this as time goes on. Right now the thing he likes most about the job is that he will have to visit all the bases occassionally.

[Nell]

Andrew, thanks for this post. Billmon predicted this near-crisis in equipment attrition in the summer of 2003, and it's gotten remarkably little attention from people who like to think of themselves as serious military commentators.

Andrew: It is to be hoped, of course, that we won't need all this equipment for combat for some time to come once we finally withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan.

When's that going to be? Unless the government invites us out by opposing renewal of the UN mandate (or another permanent member of the UNSC vetoes it), or there's a military supply-line-cutting crisis, I see a lot of troops there for the next two and a half years minimum, and longer than that in Afghanistan.

[dmbeaster]

To expand on what Hilzoy said:

Also, I've always suspected that we over-spend on technology and under-spend not just on things like boots and tank treads, but also on things like peacekeeping, because there isn't nearly as much money in them, and thus they don't have lobbyists working for them. (Or: not so many lobbyists.)

The key lobbyists for this are always going to have to be the career officers who manage procurement from the military's point of view -- there probably is no one else pushing for it (unless there are similarly like-minded career civilians in the Pentagon).

[Zaeron]

Regarding Hilzoy's comment re: Rumsfeld not making the tough calls..

My understanding was that Rumsfeld was known for his ability to make those calls. For example, he had the Crusader project canceled. I was under the impression that projects so late in development are rarely - if ever - canceled, and that was one of the unique things about Rumsfeld's time in the DoD.

Additionally, he had another program - the Comanche helicoptor - canceled as well.

I thought that those programs were canceled exactly because they were no longer viable or necessary due to the changes in warfare. "Cold war era programs" is the term I've heard a lot in discussions about them.

[Andrew]

Francis,

In answer to your questions, yes and yes. The President and Congress both bear blame for failing to account for these requirements as part of the ongoing cost of the war.

As for the debate between the CSA, SecDef, and GAO, I'll have to get into that a little later, if you'll forgive me.

John,

Counterinsurgency is a very man-intensive form of warfare. Technology can give U.S. troops advantages, but successful COIN operations involve boots on the ground, which gives insurgents an opportunity to strike at us with at least limited success, although in fact most of the casualties we're sustaining are from IEDs rather than direct fire, at least per the last analysis I saw. I'm not sure that it's accurate to state that the insurgents are 'kicking butt' as much as they taking advantage of our way of war. Insurgents study us carefully to learn how we react to things, and then set up operations to take advantage of those tendencies, at which time we change our tactics, and so on. But because they have the initiative, we're generally reacting to them and therefore they have an advantage.

dm,

I can't really speak to what people at the top are pushing for, as that's way above my pay grade. I'm not aware of many people pushing for things like uparmored HMMWVs and body armor prior to this war, in no small part because the Army didn't want to fight a COIN war and in no small part because with a limited defense budget, they decided to spend their money on high-intensity conflict tools. We can point to that now as a mistake, but given our military history prior to Iraq, it was not a surprise. Armored HMMWVs are great for COIN, for example, but they're not as much use for HIC, and the Army prior to 2003-04 was designed for HIC. Spending money on armored HMMWVs didn't make sense in that context. Doubtless there are a number of culprits here: a tendency to fight the last war, lobbyists who can make more money off big-ticket items, a failure of imagination on the part of the Army, and I'm sure many things I haven't mentioned.

My first trip to Irwin was in August of 1994. 'Nuff said.

hilzoy,

Actually, I believe Rumsfeld did cut the Crusader program. That was a next-generation piece of heavy artillery and I recall the decision being controversial at the time. But in that, at least, he was on the right track. I'm not aware of any major weapons systems on the Army side that could be cut. The M1 dates to the late 1970s, the M2 to the early 1980s, the HMMWVs to the mid-80s, and the Stryker to the late 1990s. We may still be building Strykers, and we are still building HMMWVs, but I don't think there are any new M1s or M2s in the pipeline.

As for peacekeeping, I suspect a large part of why we don't spend money on that (if by that you mean equipment and training) is because most Army personnel don't consider that a proper use of the Army. The Army's mission is to fight and win the nation's wars. Taking limited dollars and pouring them into a mission that doesn't actually fall within the Army's mission statement is a tough sell.

Doctor Science,

I'll take a look at that when I get home this evening. I tend to concur that sexy things tend to get approved more than boring items like HMMWVs. I think part of Rumsfeld's problem isn't that he's seduced, however, as much as that he came out of naval aviation and so sees a lot more value in planes than personnel.

spartikus,

With all respect to depot personnel, vehicles that come out of depots are not 'almost new.' They're better than when they came in, but they are degraded, and that process will only get worse with time. While tanks are not needed in great numbers for COIN, they still have their uses. A single tank can make a big difference in the course of a fight. Further, if we simply decide to focus all of our efforts on fighting the COIN fight and eliminate our ability to conduct HIC operations, sooner or later that decision will come back to bite us. The reason insurgency is so popular right now is that nobody can beat us in a standup fight. If we don't maintain that edge, we may find ourselves having to fight one.

Jay,

My whole career I've seen the Army trying to replace bodies with technology, and now we're paying a price for that. When I started my career, a combat battalion possessed four line companies. Then we decided to cut back to three line companies on the theory that technology would allow three companies to handle problems that required four companies in the past. But in COIN, technology just isn't as big a force-multiplier as boots on the ground.

Nell,

I can't speculate on when we will be out. I only assume that, sooner or later, we will leave.

[CaseyL]

I sympathize with whoever handles equipment requisitions for our armed forces.

1. What model of warfare do we expect to be fighting?

2. Where do we expect to be fighting it?

2. Do we expect the model to shift - say, from invasion to occupation? Or, from jungle warfare to desert warfare to urban warfare? Or some combination of all these?

3. How many people am I equipping? In how many companies, battalions, etc.? How many replacement parts should I plan on for each of them?

4. When did you say you needed this by? *Goes off and has a nice little screaming fit*

Really, it's amazing we're not sending our kids out there in their underwear :)

[CaseyL]

PS: Welcome back, Andrew!

[Slartibartfast]

Welcome back, Andrew. Excellent post.

Zaeron: it can be a mixed bag. IIRC Shinseki was invested in Crusader, and axing it didn't make him any friends. But Shinseki was (and hopefully I'm not making this up) also a big pusher of Stryker, which has turned out to be useful. I'm not sure it's safe to generalize that anybody in the military is all hard over in any particular direction. Not that Rumsfeld is in the military, but it's his job.

Some military technologies are good and useful and reliable; I'm working on one of those right now. Others...well, Commanche ran on for decades (almost literally: I did some work for them back in 1987 or '88) without getting very close to deployment. Probably axing it was justified: not that it wouldn't have been useful, but more that it was one of those programs that went through so many requirements redefinitions, redesigns, etc that it'd probably be cheaper to scrap it and start over. Crusader was just a cold-war remnant, and clearly wasn't needed. It almost got to the point where you could put one on an airplane and deliver it to the theater, though.

[Slartibartfast]

axing it didn't make him any friends

Umm...Rumsfeld axing it didn't make him friends with Shinseki, or something like that. Hopefully we can take the inevitable forthcoming exchange of Rumsfeld axing Shinseki as something that we could do, but we all know how it'll turn out, so it's better not to.

[Doctor Science]

The pattern the Pentagon has established over the last several decades (at least) is to privatize or outsource as much as possible. I'm a little surprised that equipment maintenance isn't one of these areas, but that is the logical consequence of problems such as Andrew & the WaPo article describe.

From a purely institutional POV, a function that is outsourced will have a more dedicated cheering squad (of lobbyists, salesmen, etc.) than a job that is handled internally. It will also, of course, be done at a profit, and that profit will line particular pockets.

[liberal japonicus]

Welcome back! Unfortunately, I have a feeling that there are going to be a lot more topics like this in the short term on which your experience and knowledge is going to be needed. I'd love to know what is your thinking (and your impression of the militaries thinking) on PTSD and on the problems we are seeing with rotations, especially listed in this article. I've mentioned before that it was a big mistake that the cold war dividend didn't go into remaking the military into a peace keeping force, so I accept that our views are probably very different and will try not to be too sharp in discussing this, but I would like to know what your feeling is when you read articles like the one above. Anyway, welcome back, you were missed.

[Annamal]

"As for peacekeeping, I suspect a large part of why we don't spend money on that (if by that you mean equipment and training) is because most Army personnel don't consider that a proper use of the Army. The Army's mission is to fight and win the nation's wars. Taking limited dollars and pouring them into a mission that doesn't actually fall within the Army's mission statement is a tough sell."

This is what gets me most of all, the sheer arogance of attemping an invasion and occupation of two countries without a massive boast for the peacekeeping forces that would undeniably be needed post-invasion.

Unbelieveable

[hilzoy]

Andrew: the reason I made my comment about peacekeeping can be summed up by your statement, from the next post: "Winning a battle doesn't mean a thing if you can't exploit that victory."

Ever since I heard about it, I have been in favor of Wes Clark's plan to form a civilian reserve (people volunteer; they register their skill sets; they can then be asked to serve 6 month stints (which they can decline) doing useful things like engineering or microbiology or medicine or construction; they can also be asked to serve in emergencies. Combination great big database and, well, reserves.) I always thought of it as being evidently the idea of someone who wondered: why is the army asked to do everything on earth? and set about trying to construct a better alternative.

However, even if we had bunches of construction people doing construction in (say) Afghanistan, and teachers teaching English, and so on, we'd need people to ensure basic stability. And if the army doesn't think of that as part of its mission, I think it should rethink its position.

I mean: surely the army recognizes the need not just to take e.g. a city, but to hold it after the battle -- right? Isn't this just the same thing, only on a larger scale?

[OCSteve]

Annamal: Unbelieveable

You do realize that peacekeeping means, on occasion, either applying violence or protecting yourself and your charges from said violence? A peacekeeping force today, used as it should be would want combat experienced troops. Those troops (in say Darfur) would likely be in frequent combat. So I’m not sure what qualifications you would want in a peacekeeping force… Blue helmets milling around, sexually exploiting the locals, and running at the first sign of trouble is not a peacekeeping force. (I’m not saying you said it was, my frustration spilling over from a previous thread.)

Hil:
I have been in favor of Wes Clark's plan to form a civilian reserve (people volunteer; they register their skill sets; they can then be asked to serve 6 month stints (which they can decline)

My condo association does something like that. Register your skills; they will call you to ask for help on related issues. You volunteer, we all save money. Guess what happens when we ask someone to do anything? Obviously not the same thing - just saying, you would get many to sign up and very few to follow through. You know, I’ve got this thing…

I’m on board, except for the decline part. Structure it more like the IRR… Once you sign on, for X years, you can be involuntarily activated. You might be at the top of your career and family life, but if we call, you respond.

BTW – I’ve always felt that there should be a “kinder gentler” version of national service that has the same benefits and retirement of active duty military. Peace Corps with a long term commitment and they can send you where they need you, it might be dangerous, etc. Something like that. I’ve never fleshed it out, but it seems to mesh with what you are saying.

[dmbeaster]

hilzoy:

However, even if we had bunches of construction people doing construction in (say) Afghanistan, and teachers teaching English, and so on, we'd need people to ensure basic stability. And if the army doesn't think of that as part of its mission, I think it should rethink its position.

I mean: surely the army recognizes the need not just to take e.g. a city, but to hold it after the battle -- right? Isn't this just the same thing, only on a larger scale?

The army would not be the one that redefines its mission in this manner, and as an institutional matter, it would seem to make more sense to have a separate organization have that responsibility. De facto, the State Department was trying to organize the effort for the 2003 Iraq war, and that probably made more sense than having the army be responsible for that overall function. Of course, the State Dept. effort got kicked to the curb by the Bush administration.

Realize that you don't really need a major nation building capacity as an adjunct to your armed forces unless you decide to get into the business of instigating invasions of other countries. Why, only 10 years ago the conservative position was that we do not do nation building, and we should not involve oursleves in conflicts that require that skill. That was the wisdom that kept us out of Iraq in 1991.

I think we already had the tools and expertise for a smaller scale effort -- the State Dept plans for Iraq made use of the experience in Panama and other small invasions where things went fairly well.

The thinking in 2002-2003 seemed to be that nation-building would just happen magically after a glorious invasion -- "just like in Germany and Japan after 1945." If you go and read the histories of those reconstructions (Japan in particular under McArthur), it is amazing how much more serious those efforts were, and how protracted and difficult. The Iraq war was all about ignoring reality or lying about it, so no wonder the post-war plans were non-existent.

[hilzoy]

dmb: I was thinking of the military side of things like Kosovo, East Timor, the Congo, Darfur in the alternate universe in which we hadn't committed the army (with the puzzling, though fortunate for us, exception of Andrew) to Iraq, etc.

[Donald Clarke]

Andrew

Welcome back.

As for the equipment issue, maybe we can get some benefits out of it. There is a lot of work available. Divide it up among the depots, the private sector, and reservists in maintenance units doing AT or ADSW (Annual Training or Active Duty for Special Work). See which operations seem to provide the best value for the money.

I suspect the private sector will be the best value, for large batches of similar jobs. I think the depots are also useful, if only to provide some competition for the private sector. I think private companies might have limited competition if left by themselves because the start up costs for say M1 tank rebuilds probably decrease the number of competitors. That limited competition will tend to evaporate their cost advantage.

As you said, the work needs to be done. Lets see if we can learn something from the experience.

[Slartibartfast]

As for tanks wearing out, they are to all appearances still in production. I'm guessing that even if we're building tanks for the Saudis, we can bump their orders if the need is great enough. And it appears the production lines are still active, so rebuilding the capability doesn't look to be an issue.

In addition to building new tanks, GD Land Systems is busy bringing M1A1 tanks up to M1A2 capability. I have no idea how many M1A1s are left out there, but GDLS has current contracts to retrofit at least a few hundred M1A1s.

[Tim]

The incoming Democratic Congress no doubt has a lot of things they want to do rather than look into making sure the military is really prepared for combat. But if they're serious about their complaints about the Bush administration, then Chairman Skelton has a lot of hard work ahead of him. I look forward to seeing how seriously he takes that charge.

They could start by finding out where the $2 billion a week we're spending is actually going.

[Andrew]

Slart,

A retrofitted M1A1 still has an old drive train, turret gears, and so on. Yes, it has the CITV and other nifty gadgets, but it's still at significantly high risk of breakdown during operations.

[Slartibartfast]

Sure, not saying refitting them fixes everything. That was more of a side comment; the main point was M1A2s are being cranked out still.

[Prodigal]

They could start by finding out where the $2 billion a week we're spending is actually going.

Or maybe even by, y'know, working an entire week at a time, maybe?

[save_the_rustbelt]

I beleive the tank plant in Lima Ohio has gotten one small contract (1/2B is small in this area) to refurbish and upgrade M1s.

This plant built most of the tanks (with an assist from Warren Michigan), and does the overseas work and the upgrades for DOD.

I don't think Lima is making any new M1s for the US, so everything for now is retrofit.

We could really use the jobs in Ohio, although this is not a really nifty form of economic development.

I have heard figures from $40B to $100B just to get everything repaired and combat ready.

Good grief.

[Slartibartfast]

On looking a little more slowly, with greater reading comprehension, I note that M1A2s don't actually seem to be in production after all. So the cobwebby-assembly-line notion might have some validity to it, after all.

[togolosh]

As far as peacekeeping options go, why not simply have a dedicated all-volunteer peacekeeping force within the army? Nobody who signed up to storm beaches or paint rocks would be forced to join, and the force would be available for combat duties if needed, but they'd also have special training in peacekeeping and COIN, providing the nucleus of a force which could be expanded if necessary.

[Barry]

Andrew: "While the Bush administration got a lot of the blame for that, the fact is that responsibility for those shortfalls covers a lot more ground than any one administration. It takes years to properly equip an army, and the shortfalls people decried at the start of the war had accumulated over years, when Congress and different administrations decided that the military had what it needed to fight and win on the battlefield. "

The Iraq war was a go, from what we on the outside know, as of 12 Sep 2001. The Bush administration's efforts to prepare the Army's equipment for this war started, as far as we on the outside can tell, sometime in 2004. At best - real efforts haven't started even now, as the Washington Post article states. A depot running on a restricted budget!?!?!?! A month's shutdown!?!?!.

There may be shortages due to pre-Bush actions, but there's enough evidence available that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield should be put on trial.