KERRY CALLS ON BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO PROPERLY EQUIP TROOPSSays Lack of Body Armor for Soldiers, Vehicles is a “Disgrace”
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Excerpts of Kerry’s statement, as prepared, are included below:
Four years ago, we sent our young men and women to Iraq for a war that many of us now believe was a grave and tragic mistake. But day after day, and month after month, this Administration has repeatedly exacerbated that mistake by leaving our soldiers in the field without the equipment and protection they need—knowing full well what the lethal consequences would be....
But there should be no disagreement that we must give our troops everything they need to be as safe as they possibly can. There should be no disagreement that when we ask young men and women to leave their families to fight deadly foreign enemies halfway across the world, when we ask them to put their lives on the line—the very least we owe them is the equipment they need to protect themselves.
One soldier who dies from a roadside bomb because he doesn’t have enough armor is one too many.
And when it comes to body armor and armored vehicles, our troops are not getting what they need. According to The Washington Post this week, our soldiers are short more than 4,000 of the latest Humvee Armor Kit, the FRAG Kit 5. Fewer than half of the Army’s 14,500 up-armored Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan have the latest equipment. As Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the Army's deputy chief of staff for force development, said: “We don't have the kits, and we don't have the trucks."
And it’s not just armored vehicles that would keep our troops safer—they need better body armor too. People are actually holding bake sales to raise money to send body armor and helmets to the troops. Over a year ago, the Pentagon issued a report that many of the deaths in Iraq caused by upper body injuries could be prevented if all body armor issued to our troops included side armor plates. Some of my colleagues raised this issue with Secretary Rumsfeld, and he assured them that the Pentagon would begin procurement and delivery of an additional 230,000 sets of side armor plates.
But just last month, another Pentagon report found continued shortages in force-protection equipment for our soldiers—a shortage of body armor, a shortage of up-armored vehicles, a shortage of communications equipment, and a shortage of electronic countermeasure devices. We’ve also heard firsthand from troops that many are still being issued body armor without the side-armor plates.
How could anyone send our soldiers on the most dangerous patrols in the roughest neighborhoods of Baghdad without the best possible protection? In the last four years, over 1,100 Americans have died from roadside bombs. And thousands of our best troops have suffered debilitating injuries or had their lives permanently altered by these terrible weapons. Knowing full well that we don’t have enough armor for the troops already in the field, how can we possibly send more than 20,000 additional American soldiers to do a job that Iraqis ought be doing for themselves?
By themselves, these shortages are troubling, but the President’s plan to send over 20,000 more troops makes them even more calamitous. And now we hear that the troops pouring into Iraq won’t have enough up-armored Humvees and other armored vehicles until July. How can we send over 20,000 soldiers in now when the armor their lives depend on won’t arrive until July? How can we justify this policy to the mother of a soldier killed in a Humvee without proper armor? How can we explain it to a wounded soldier at Walter Reed whose injury could have been prevented with the right equipment?
The technology already exists to keep our troops safer—so why, four years later, don’t our they have it? Partly, it’s due to gross incompetence at the highest levels of the Bush administration. But mostly, the fact is that this Administration never mobilized the country for the war in Iraq. Since we invaded, the need for a fleet of vehicles that can keep our troops safe has been unmistakable. And yet we’ve kept relying on a single provider of up-armored Humvees. That’s right, one provider. And given the chronic shortfalls we’ve seen, that was clearly insufficient.
But even after all we’ve heard, over several years, about our soldiers lacking equipment and armor, this Administration still doesn’t seem to get it. The President’s defense budget request for next year doesn’t include funds for enough armored vehicles, and so the Marine Corps had to ask Congress for an additional $2.8 billion to buy more Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles. Going back to 2002, the Bush administration terminated funding for one alternative vehicle more suited to the battlefield in Iraq because of what they called different “budget priorities.”
We need to give our soldiers extra body armor and the latest up-armored Humvees they need to do their job as safely as they can. But ultimately we need to fix this failed policy and provide a responsible strategy for ending the war. That is why I will again introduce a resolution to the Senate that offers us the best chance to salvage some measure of success in Iraq. The troops ought to be protected for as long as they police Iraqi streets, but they shouldn’t be policing those streets in the first place. We can and must bring our combat troops home within a year.
We need to create a whole new dynamic on the ground by setting a one-year deadline for redeployment of our troops—leaving only those necessary to finish training Iraqi security forces, conduct counterterrorism operations, and protect our facilities and personnel.
Iraqis need to take responsibility for Iraq. We need to recognize that Iraqis have shown over and over again that they only respond to deadlines– a deadline to transfer authority, deadlines to hold two elections and a referendum, and a deadline to form a government. Without hard deadlines, our best hopes for progress in Iraq have been dashed by squabbling politicians unwilling to take responsibility for their country’s future.
Deadlines are also necessary to instill a sense of urgency in Iraq’s neighbors and the international community. Setting a deadline drives home a basic but essential point: None of Iraq’s neighbors want chaos on their borders. None of them want to see Iraq fall apart. But the status quo works well for a country like Iran—they are delighted to see us bogged down while they expand their influence in Iraq. By setting a deadline, we can help change their strategic calculus so that their interest in preventing chaos in Iraq is stronger than their desire to see us bogged down there. Setting a deadline also signals to Iraq’s Sunni neighbors that the time has finally come to pressure Sunnis inside Iraq to make the hard compromises necessary to bring about a lasting political solution.
But none of that will be accomplished by sending in over 20,000 more troops. None of that will be accomplished with a mere shift in tactics. We need a whole new strategy. Here’s the surge we ought to be talking about: We should be making an aggressive push to bring together the various factions inside and outside Iraq to begin taking ownership of the future of the country and the region. With a one year deadline I believe we could really make things happen diplomatically.
The mistakes we have already made cannot be undone— but that does not mean we’re doomed to repeat them. The soldiers in the field already bear the burden of this Administration’s decision to invade Iraq and lack of a postwar plan. Many of them paid for it with their lives. They bear this burden with incredible courage, resilience, and guts.
They go out and do their job, even as their mission amidst another country’s civil war becomes less and less clear every day. They shouldn’t have to bear that burden without the best protection we can offer. It’s time to get this right, once and for all, and not send any more Americans into harm’s way without a strategy to guide them and without the equipment they need to protect them.
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