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itsyourworld_changeit
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...Under-Supplied, etc. in the last Debate? WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Friday cast doubt on an account of military equipment shortages mentioned by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, whose campaign team stood by the story.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080223/pl_nm/usa_politics_obama_pentagon_dc;_ylt=AqI2ec9bHKTmmHY99wly78Cs0NUE
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon. You're supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. He ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.
MCINTYRE: OK, here's what the captain said. "Fifteen soldiers with not sent as a group to Iraq." He said, "We lost 15 through normal reassignment and they were not replaced. Many of those 15 ended up in units going to Iraq, but I can't say all 15 were there."
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0802/22/sitroom.02.html
If the Captain basically backed Obama's story, why is the Pentagon saying otherwise?
All of this happened five years ago in the spring and summer of 2003 during the lead up to and the invasion of Iraq. The captain was a first lieutenant then and his rifle company from Fort Drum, New York was sent to eastern Afghanistan. OK, back to Barack Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: As a consequence they didn't have enough ammunition. They didn't have enough Humvees.
MCINTYRE: It's true, the captain said. "There were no Humvees with" at Fort Drum and "not sufficient ammunition" for training before they left. So he said they had to go do that after they got to Afghanistan and they only had three days to get up to speed.
OBAMA: They were actually capturing Taliban weapons because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.
MCINTYRE: With the soldiers scrounging for weapons? Well, not exactly. "The issue wasn't that we didn't have weapons. The issue was we couldn't get parts for the weapons, as they broke," the soldier told us.
So when the unit's 50-caliber machine gun broke down, he said, quote, "from the large stockpile of weapons we captured over the long tour, we took the best functioning Taliban weapons we could use and mounted that on our 50 cal."
Interesting side light. When then top commander General John Abizaid visited his front line fire base, the soldier replaced the Russian machine gun with a broken American one just for show. Now the officer is still in the army and his final comment to us was, "It made me pretty angry at the time and I'm still pretty bitter about it."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080223/pl_nm/usa_politics_obama_pentagon_dc;_ylt=AqI2ec9bHKTmmHY99wly78Cs0NUE
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon. You're supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. He ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.
MCINTYRE: OK, here's what the captain said. "Fifteen soldiers with not sent as a group to Iraq." He said, "We lost 15 through normal reassignment and they were not replaced. Many of those 15 ended up in units going to Iraq, but I can't say all 15 were there."
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0802/22/sitroom.02.html
If the Captain basically backed Obama's story, why is the Pentagon saying otherwise?
All of this happened five years ago in the spring and summer of 2003 during the lead up to and the invasion of Iraq. The captain was a first lieutenant then and his rifle company from Fort Drum, New York was sent to eastern Afghanistan. OK, back to Barack Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: As a consequence they didn't have enough ammunition. They didn't have enough Humvees.
MCINTYRE: It's true, the captain said. "There were no Humvees with" at Fort Drum and "not sufficient ammunition" for training before they left. So he said they had to go do that after they got to Afghanistan and they only had three days to get up to speed.
OBAMA: They were actually capturing Taliban weapons because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.
MCINTYRE: With the soldiers scrounging for weapons? Well, not exactly. "The issue wasn't that we didn't have weapons. The issue was we couldn't get parts for the weapons, as they broke," the soldier told us.
So when the unit's 50-caliber machine gun broke down, he said, quote, "from the large stockpile of weapons we captured over the long tour, we took the best functioning Taliban weapons we could use and mounted that on our 50 cal."
Interesting side light. When then top commander General John Abizaid visited his front line fire base, the soldier replaced the Russian machine gun with a broken American one just for show. Now the officer is still in the army and his final comment to us was, "It made me pretty angry at the time and I'm still pretty bitter about it."
