Donald Rumsfeld

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld attempted to boost troop morale today. Here is an excerpt of an article that appeared in The New York Times under the headline "Troops' Queries Leave Rumsfeld on the Defensive," by Eric Schmitt

Mr. Rumsfeld, seemingly caught off guard by the sharp questioning, responded that the military was producing extra armor for Humvees and trucks as fast as possible, but that the soldiers would have to cope with equipment shortages. "You go to war with the Army you have, not theArmy you might want or wish to have at a later time," he said.Specialist Thomas Wilson, a scout with a Tennessee National Guard unit set to roll into Iraq this week, was the first to step forward, saying that soldiers had had to scrounge through landfills here for pieces of rusty scrap metal and bulletproof glass - what they called "hillbilly armor" - to bolt to their trucks."Why don't we have those resources readily available to us?" Specialist Wilson asked Mr. Rumsfeld, drawing cheers and applause from many of the 2,300 soldiers assembled in a cavernous hangar here to meet the secretary.A few minutes later, a soldier from the Idaho National Guard's 116th Armored Cavalry Brigade asked Mr. Rumsfeld what he and the Army were doing "to address shortages and antiquated equipment" that will affect National Guard soldiers heading to Iraq.Mr. Rumsfeld seemed taken aback by the question and a murmur began spreading through the ranks before he silenced it. "Now, settle down, settle down," he said. "Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here."Mr. Rumsfeld, 72, said all organizations had equipment, materials and spare parts of different vintages, but he expressed confidence that Army leaders were assigning the newest and best equipment to the troops headed for combat who needed it most. He said adding more armor to trucks and battle equipment did not make them impervious to enemy attack. "You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up," he said. "And you can have an up-armored Humvee and it can be blown up."

I say: What a way to boost morale! In essence, Rumsfeld was saying that since most of you are going to be wounded or die in the quagmire of Iraq anyway, they are trying to achieve this result as cheaply as possible as a result of their poor planning. Maybe if the Defense Department and White House would have planned this unnecessary war better, and accounted for variables such as a prolonged insurrection and bitter Iraqi civilian attitudes toward the U.S. Military, then they wouldn't have what could amount to a muntiny on their hands.

Kudos to Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and, of course, the old man, Donald Rumsfeld!