October 30, 2006--Standing Down
I rarely comment about articles that appear on the front page of the NY Times. Rather, I troll for stories hidden in the paper’s inner recesses, those decidedly well below the fold, feeling that’s where the follies are most often to be found.
But today is an exception—the madness is right there, revealed in two side-by-side stories, both on page one and both well above the fold. Thinking you may have missed these since, like me, you are probably putting finishing touches on your Halloween outfit, you may have overlooked them and thus I need to bring them to your attention. Both are linked below.
The first reports about how weapons we are making available to the Iraqi army and police appear to be disappearing. Not because of indigenous incompetence but because of simple things like our military folks not keeping track of them as they are distributed. I am talking about big-time weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades, assault rifles, machine guns, and sniper rifles. Perhaps some that have fallen into “insurgents’” hands and have been used to kill U.S. troops.
All of these weapons have serial numbers and it should, therefore, be easy to keep track of them; but almost none of the numbers have been kept by the army—our Inspector general looked at the fate of 505,093 and found just 12,128 serial numbers were recorded.
Further, we have also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build the capacity of Iraqi logistics personnel so that Americans will not be needed to deliver fuel and ammunition, transport Iraqi soldiers, or provide maintenance for the equipment and weapons we are giving to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, in other words so we can “stand down” when they “stand up.”
But we have failed in this as well—we haven’t trained sufficient Iraqis to do this logistical work and haven’t supplied them with instructional manuals. In fact we do not know how many have been trained because the military told the Inspector General that “a computer network crash erased the records.”
“Good job, Brownie.”
How did all of this incompetence become known? Because Senator Warner requested the study. Recall, as the all-powerful chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and as a staunch supporter of both the military and the war, he very recently came to conclude that the situation on the ground is moving “sideways” and we may need to change course. I wonder what he is thinking now. Do I hear U-Turn?
And then, from the adjacent front page story, you will undoubtedly not be surprised to learn that the trustees of Gallaudet University, in another victory for the Enlightenment, did their own version of a U-Turn over the weekend—they gave in to student demands that they appoint someone as president who is appropriately deaf.
So what costume will you be wearing?
But today is an exception—the madness is right there, revealed in two side-by-side stories, both on page one and both well above the fold. Thinking you may have missed these since, like me, you are probably putting finishing touches on your Halloween outfit, you may have overlooked them and thus I need to bring them to your attention. Both are linked below.
The first reports about how weapons we are making available to the Iraqi army and police appear to be disappearing. Not because of indigenous incompetence but because of simple things like our military folks not keeping track of them as they are distributed. I am talking about big-time weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades, assault rifles, machine guns, and sniper rifles. Perhaps some that have fallen into “insurgents’” hands and have been used to kill U.S. troops.
All of these weapons have serial numbers and it should, therefore, be easy to keep track of them; but almost none of the numbers have been kept by the army—our Inspector general looked at the fate of 505,093 and found just 12,128 serial numbers were recorded.
Further, we have also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build the capacity of Iraqi logistics personnel so that Americans will not be needed to deliver fuel and ammunition, transport Iraqi soldiers, or provide maintenance for the equipment and weapons we are giving to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, in other words so we can “stand down” when they “stand up.”
But we have failed in this as well—we haven’t trained sufficient Iraqis to do this logistical work and haven’t supplied them with instructional manuals. In fact we do not know how many have been trained because the military told the Inspector General that “a computer network crash erased the records.”
“Good job, Brownie.”
How did all of this incompetence become known? Because Senator Warner requested the study. Recall, as the all-powerful chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and as a staunch supporter of both the military and the war, he very recently came to conclude that the situation on the ground is moving “sideways” and we may need to change course. I wonder what he is thinking now. Do I hear U-Turn?
And then, from the adjacent front page story, you will undoubtedly not be surprised to learn that the trustees of Gallaudet University, in another victory for the Enlightenment, did their own version of a U-Turn over the weekend—they gave in to student demands that they appoint someone as president who is appropriately deaf.
So what costume will you be wearing?
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:53 AM
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