LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
CNN
April 27,
2004 Tuesday
As we
reported, there's rising concern tonight about whether U.S. troops have the
protection they need in Iraq.
My next guests have different views. House Armed Services Committee Chairman
Duncan Hunter says all troops in Iraq now have the latest body armor available
and that's been true since January. Duncan Hunter is, of course, the chairman
of the House Armed Services Committee. We're also joined tonight by
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky,
who says body armor is not enough. The congresswoman says the military needs
to do more to protect the vehicles U.S. troops are riding in Iraq.
Congresswoman Schakowsky is the
chief deputy whip of the House Democratic leadership -- both joining us
tonight from Washington.
Good to have you with us.
REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D),
ILLINOIS: Thanks, Lou.
REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: Good to be with you, Lou.
DOBBS: Let me begin, if I may, with you, Mr. Chairman.
And that is the issue of body armor. There are reports, as you know, that
families are still buying body armor for reservists and National Guardsmen
going to Iraq. Why are they doing that if, indeed, there is adequate body
armor?
HUNTER: Well, Lou, obviously, a very important question for all of us in the
Armed Services Committee. We have worked this thing heavily with the military,
watched them on a weekly basis.
They now have, according to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs in testimony and
in letters to us, have stated that we have produced now 260,000 sets of
complete body armor, 260,000. We have 135,000 troops in theater. The statement
from our DOD is that every single person not only uniformed personnel, but
also every civil servant who is in Iraq has at least one set of body armor.
Now, if you look at the production number, we have twice as much body armor as
we have people in Iraq. Of course, we have people in Afghanistan, too. They
also are fully covered. So the answer is that every single soldier has body
armor who is now -- who has a foot in Iraq and that every single civil servant
who is supporting that operation in Iraq also has body armor. And I would
invite, if people have sons or daughters who are in the Iraq theater don't
have body armor, my name is Hunter.
You get ahold of me at the U.S. Congress. And I want to know what unit that is
and who doesn't have it, and we will move immediately on that. But, again, we
produced 260,000 sets. That's twice as much as we need for everybody in
theater. And what we have back from DOD is that everybody, before you step
over that line from Kuwait, has body armor.
DOBBS: Congresswoman
Schakowsky...
SCHAKOWSKY: Yes.
DOBBS: The issue raised by General Ellis, and that is over inadequate Humvee
armor, if we may move to that issue next, you're not satisfied with the
situation. Neither is General Ellis. What is your suggestion to be done about
it?
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, you know, an
unofficial report, we haven't seen it yet, by a defense
contractor estimates that
one-quarter of deaths in Iraq might have been prevented had our troops had
adequate equipment.
What an indictment that is. And maybe all our troops have the Kevlar vests.
But they may need an extra to hang over the side in order to protect their
vehicles. There's a soldier who was just deployed for another three months
after his year that wrote to the Peoria paper. And what he said is, this unit
does not have the extra armor that's now required for vehicle convoys.
Even though we've been here over one year, we still don't have the right
protection from roadside bombs or small-arms fires. Our doors are, basically,
just two sides of sheet metal. We've known for a long time that our soldiers
are more likely to face RPGs, rocket- propelled grenades, than they are
rosebuds and open arms.
You know, we have known that this is a very dangerous situation. As of last
October, a quarter of our troops, it's estimated, did not have that body
armor. I think a lot of parents -- I've met with many of them -- are very
concerned that force protection, that taking care of their kids is not the top
priority.
DOBBS: Chairman...
HUNTER: Let me address that, Lou.
DOBBS: Yes. Mr. Chairman, I would like you to address it from the standpoint
of something that you said earlier in talking about force protection. You
said, in keeping this trust, referring to the obligation of your committee to
provide oversight and the assurance of force protection, that is, protecting
American lives wherever their mission takes them. In this case, Iraq. You
said, if we're to be successful in accomplishing this mission at any time
anywhere in the world, in keeping this trust we must be honest in our
assessment of whether we're doing everything to not only provide the soldiers
what they need to accomplish their mission but when they need it. Mr.
Chairman, are we maintaining that trust, in your judgment?
HUNTER: Well, Lou, we have now armored some 71 percent of all of the Humvees
that are in theater. We've armored some 2,800, which is a total rebuild of
that Jeep. The problem is that a Humvee is basically a fancy Jeep. What we've
done is we've gone to war and we've discovered a new system, a new weapons
system called the IED, can be detonated remotely, it can be as big as a huge
artillery round just a few feet away.
Jeeps can't handle that. And that is something that we have discovered...
DOBBS: The roadside bombs.
HUNTER: The roadside bomb and we do need to manufacture systems that are much
bigger than those Jeeps because even if you put 2,000 pounds of armor on those
jeeps and we have now armored either by manufacturing the new heavy-duty
Humvee or by putting kits in theater and having those placed on, we've done 71
percent. We still have 29 percent of the army vehicles that aren't done. All
the marine vehicles have some that need to be done.
But here's the point, Lou. In October, we did know that and we put in $240
million in a supplemental budget, which was line item, to pay for up armored
Humvees. My colleague voted against the supplemental appropriation. My
colleague voted against such supplemental appropriation so we in Congress bear
some of the fault for not moving quickly enough to get this armor between our
troops and those explosions in the road. You don't get those things for free.
The answer is we have to do a lot more, I think we're going to have to go to
bigger systems than Humvees. My recommendation is to use 5 and 7-ton trucks
and striker vehicles on these heavy convoy operations instead of using what we
have now, which is a Jeep.
DOBBS: General David Grange, as you know, our military analyst here, Mr.
Chairman, would like to see the APCs, what was referred to as the old APC, the
113s, brought in to bear in Iraq. Congresswoman
Schakowsky, we're out of time. I
have to give you the last word if I may.
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, you know, the
$87 billion -- one of the reasons that I voted no is that I thought we can't
trust this administration to spend this money well without a plan in Iraq.
They got the money. It still turns out that many of our kids are there without
the equipment that they need. A Chinook helicopter that was downed from an
Illinois unit, the National Guard. They were last on the list to get the
proper missile detection system. I spoke to the aunt of one of those soldiers.
She certainly doesn't feel that enough is being done.
DOBBS: We thank you both very much.
HUNTER: Thank you.
DOBBS: Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman
Schakowsky, we appreciate your time.