Protecting, Armoring U.S. Troops Is WIP

[Rose Siding]

...Behind a makeshift steel plate on the door of a cargo truck, Sgt. Cesar Feliciano is nervous. His pregnant wife in Puerto Rico doesn't know he's riding a bomb magnet across Iraq on this day for the first time, or that he'll keep doing so every week this year.
...
But on at least one out of every five trips, drivers say, something does happen. Eighteen months after insurgents first began to line Iraqi roads with bombs, U.S. military vehicles continue to brave Iraq's most perilous roadways without armor.

Fresh American troops cross the dusty berm from Kuwait into Iraq in the largest troop rotation in U.S. military history. Starting Tuesday, no American military vehicle will travel outside a protected base without some sort of armor, military officials said last week. This is the result of a concentrated push after a National Guardsman confronted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in December and complained that soldiers were forced to scavenge for makeshift "hillbilly armor" to protect themselves on the trip into Iraq.
...
As outgoing troops reach Kuwait, their armor is removed for use on incoming vehicles.

The effort is expanding. At an undisclosed site in central Kuwait, Chuck Wentworth, a Defense Department project manager, oversees 177 workers who bolt on the Level 2 armor. Two weeks ago, he had 34 workers. Soon he'll have 220.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-armor13feb13,0,6806856.story?coll=la-home-world

fubar

[bpilgrim]

1. don't expect ANY time-lines, either...

http://images.globalfreepress.com
that will ONLY help the ENEMY!

peace

[UL_Approved]

2. Another "unfunded mandate"

This will never get completed, and the lack of completion will get placed at the back pages of all news publications.

[Redstone]

3. "As outgoing troops reach Kuwait, their armor is removed"

Hey, it's the New Environmentally Conscious Army...they're recycling!

Redstone

[keopeli]

4. Article Contents Condensed

Wow - John Hendron, Staff Writer at the LA Times has a hard time making a story simple to understand. As I understand the article--

--

The largest troop rotation in U.S. military history is happening right now in Iraq, through Kuwait.

New military protocol: No American military vehicle will travel outside a protected base without some sort of armor,

Armor is being removed from vehicles that have been in Iraq and bolted to the incoming troop's vehicles. Transfer of the steel makeshift plates is still not finished.

We are also given these numbers

Vehicles in Iraq:

6000 Level 1 Armed Humvees - the best kind

12000 Level 2 Armed Vehicles - armor bolted on in war zone

7300 Vehicles with only improvised armor, known as MadMax. (Due to be 'upgraded' in June--to a better steel plate.)

No distribution list is provided to show what vehicles are being used where. Instead, we learn that:

The first bottled-water plant in Iraq will be complete in July, with six more to follow. (Water will be used for military - intended to reduce the flow of traffic on the roads.)

Keo