It was as compelling a piece of video as you'll ever see: A scout with the Ten nessee National Guard, whose unit is headed for Iraq, publicly berating Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld over his fellow soldiers' alleged lack of adequately armored vehicles.
What made the footage even more powerful was Rumsfeld's response: The normally unflappable secretary stood motionless momentarily, seemingly at a loss for words, before answering.
Rumsfeld responded with characteristic candor. "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time," the secretary said during a town hall-type session with soldiers in an aircraft hanger in Kuwait.
It was red meat to the lions, who naturally ate it right up (while all but ignoring the context Rumsfeld offered).
It was a lead story on the network news broadcasts, and photos of the soldier and Rumsfeld dominated the top of the front page of The New York Times.
But there was a little bit more — and a whole lot less — to the story than what immediately met the eye.
For one thing, Rumsfeld was set up.
[Duh!
The Left hates Rummy and they're just sick that he's not one of the members of the Bush Cabinet who's leaving.--Jen]
Too bad!
A reporter for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, who subsequently couldn't keep from chortling in an e-mail to his colleagues, had recruited a couple of soldiers to ask potentially embarrassing questions.
[Is the Chattanooga Times even a legit paper?
I'd like to personally thank Matt Drudge for publishing that boastful email of Pitts' and scoring another victory for we citizen journalists!]
"I just had one of my best days as a journalist today," bragged Edward Lee Pitts, who was crowing over his success in finally publicizing a story "I've been trying to get . . . out for weeks."
[So, IOW, he's not reporting the news, but creating it.
Not kosher.]
Pitts is embedded with the 278th Regimental Combat Team in Kuwait.
[Hopefully, not for long...--J.T.]
When he learned that Rumsfeld would be addressing troops at a town hall- style meeting at Camp Buehring — and that only soldiers would be allowed to ask questions — Pitts came up with a bit of journalistic subterfuge.
"I brought two [soldiers] along with me as my escorts," he wrote — and worked with them on how best to grill Rumsfeld.
[I don't see anything but partisan politics in this whole incident.]
Then, "I went and found the Sgt. in charge of the microphone for the question-and-answer session and made sure he knew to get my guys out of the crowd."
So what looked to the world like a soldier spontaneously voicing his beefs to the highest level of the military establishment turned out to be something else entirely: a meticulously arranged ambush.
"The great part," crowed Pitts, "was that after the event was over, the throng of national media following Rumsfeld . . . swarmed to the two soldiers I brought from the unit I am embedded with."
When an officer from the unit asked Pitts what his story would say, according to the reporter, "I pointed at the horde of national media pointing cameras and mikes at the 278th guys and said he had bigger problems on his hands than the Chattanooga Times Free Press."
And, of course, that was true.
After all, how often does a secretary of defense confess in public to sending ill-equipped troops into harm's way — callously and with malice aforethought?
Except Rumsfeld did no such thing.
That is, he made no such confession.
And he — and the U.S. Army — showed no such "malice" in the first place.
The soldier, Spec. Thomas Wilson of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked why he and his buddies were being sent into Iraq aboard what he termed inadequately armored vehicles.
War, of course, is an inherently risky business, a fact Rumsfeld underscored: "You can have all the armor in the world on a tank," he responded, "and a tank can still be blown up."
Nobody — least of all Rumsfeld — has denied that some troops have been sent into Iraq with less-than-optimal equipment. The issue was thoroughly debated during this year's presidential campaign — and no doubt President Bush was damaged politically because of it.
But the most vociferous critics — Sen. John Kerry foremost among them — would not have been satisfied with all the armor in the world: They were against the war, pure and simple, and they viewed the equipment issue as a tool with which to damage Bush.
Those who believe Operation Iraqi Freedom to have been an essential engagement in the larger War on Terror are correct to be worried about armor.
We certainly are.
Yet we also understand that all the armor in the world wasn't available. The Army had been designed and equipped to fight an entirely different sort of conflict than what it has encountered in Iraq.
Meanwhile, armor and related equipment is being produced, distributed and installed as quickly as possible.
Some 18 months ago, it was deemed necessary to move against Saddam Hussein — which brings the discussion back to where Donald Rumsfeld began it: "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."
The Chattanooga Times Free Press did the nation no service by reducing this debate to a gotcha-game played in the Kuwaiti desert — and the liberal media are compounding the damage by distorting what it was that Rumsfeld said.
At the end of the day, soldiers need to make do with what they have.
So it has always been.
I am thoroughly *disgusted* with this latest show of disloyalty to our country, our troops and the Bush Administration by the MSM.
When are we, the American people, going to completely wash our hands of the Leftist media and their minions?
I'm beginning to think more and more that our real war is with them and that our war with the Islamofascists is only secondary, but, of course, they're one and the same and both working to help the other.
(Do the evildoers need to be given a bigger hint that they could hit our soldiers in Iraq in their vehicles and that the likelihood that they would hit one that wasn't armored is "good," thus causing maximum deaths and injuries?)
One of the things I've been doing recently is watching the repeat of the series "Band of Brothers" on cable...Can you imagine our men in uniform in WWII whining to Sec. of War Henry Stimson about their lack of warm uniforms, hot food and even enough ammunition when they fought the Battle of the Bulge at the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945?
Worse yet, can you picture front-line reporter Ernie Pyle taking pride in goading those guys to do that carping?
Sec. Rumsfeld is quite right--"You go to war with the army you have..."
And thus is ever has been and probably ever shall be.
Give Rummy credit for holding the town meeting with the troops and asking for feedback, though.
He's such a great guy and remains one of the most successful military leaders of all time!
I'm sure he was aware of the problem and didn't need Mr. Pitts or his ventriloquist dummy to make him aware of it.
And then there's some indication that the problem isn't as pervasive as that cheering crowd of soldiers would indicate, either:
Do read the WSJ's op ed today, placing a good part of the blame for the lack of armor where it properly lies, with
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