corrente

Remember the cakewalk? Remember the roses the Iraqis were going to throw? Bush believed that was going to happen, and that was enough for him. Too bad it wasn't enough for American troops going to war in Humvees with no armor.

When the war began, only about 2 percent of Army's 110,000 Humvees were armored. Now, of the nearly 15,000 Humvees in Iraq, about 1,500 to 2,000 are armored, according to the Army. The numbers are increasing.

During the war last year, some Humvees were ambushed as swift-moving U.S. troops bypassed pockets of resistance.

But the attacks have mounted as Iraq became what Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces, calls "a 360-degree battlefield," with none of safer rear areas of conventional warfare.

"They were not intended to be on the front lines," Dempsey said of the unarmored vehicles. "In a linear battlefield, Humvees always operated behind the front lines - in most cases even out of artillery range. Iraq isn't a linear battlefield. As we find ourselves in a low- to mid-intensity conflict, and we have all these vehicles designed for a linear battlefield, they come up short."
(via AP)

So, at the beginning of the war, 2% of the Humvees are armored. Now, 13% are. Why are we sending are troops to the duck pit? Great work from Der Furor!

Meanwhile, paying the mercenaries—whose employers are all good Republican campaign contributors—is eating up a quarter of the Iraq reconstruction money Congress voted.

Because of the surging violence, U.S.-financed contractors rebuilding Iraq are spending a quarter of their money to protect workers and insure their projects, according to American officials monitoring the work.
(via AP)

No wonder Bush didn't put anything for Iraq in the budget! Clusterfuck, anyone?