I Cogitate

January 7, 2006
Pentagon Study Links Fatalities to Body Armor
By MICHAEL MOSS
New York Times

A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

The ceramic plates in vests now worn by the majority of troops in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck the marines' shoulders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach.

Thirty-one of the deadly wounds struck the chest or back so close to the plates that simply enlarging the existing shields "would have had the potential to alter the fatal outcome," according to the study, which was obtained by The New York Times.

For the first time, the study by the military's medical examiner shows the cost in lives from inadequate armor, even as the Pentagon continues to publicly defend its protection of the troops.

Officials have said they are shipping the best armor to Iraq as quickly as possible. At the same time, they have maintained that it is impossible to shield forces from the increasingly powerful improvised explosive devices used by insurgents in Iraq. Yet the Pentagon's own study reveals the equally lethal threat of bullets.

The vulnerability of the military's body armor has been known since the start of the war, and is part of a series of problems that have surrounded the protection of American troops. Still, the Marine Corps did not begin buying additional plates to cover the sides of their troops until September, when it ordered 28,800 sets, Marine officials acknowledge.

The Army, which has the largest force in Iraq, is still deciding what to purchase, according to Army procurement officials. They said the Army was deciding among various sizes of plates to give its 130,000 soldiers, adding that they hoped to issue contracts this month.

Additional forensic studies by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's unit that were obtained by The Times indicate that about 340 American troops have died solely from torso wounds.

Military officials said they had originally decided against using the extra plates because they were concerned they added too much weight to the vests or constricted the movement of soldiers. Marine Corps officials said the findings of the Pentagon study caused field commanders to override those concerns in the interest of greater protection.

"As the information became more prevalent and aware to everybody that in fact these were casualty sites that they needed to be worried about, then people were much more willing to accept that weight on their body," said Maj. Wendell Leimbach, a body armor specialist with Marine Corps Systems Command, the corps procurement unit.

The Pentagon has been collecting the data on wounds since the beginning of the war in March 2003 in part to determine the effectiveness of body armor. The military's medical examiner, Dr. Craig T. Mallak, told a military panel in 2003 that the information "screams to be published." But it would take nearly two years.

Democratic Policy Committee: The Credibility Gap Widens: The Bush Administration's Record on Body Armor...

"If you're going to make an accusation in the course of a presidential campaign, you've got to back it up with facts."
-President George W. Bush, New York Times, 3/17/04

President Bush has repeatedly asserted that he strongly supports our troops and is committed to ensuring that they receive the equipment they need... Unfortunately, the President's record does not match his rhetoric. This report provides a fact check on the President's record...

Body Armor

    * The Bush Administration's failure to adequately prepare for the Iraq war and its aftermath left thousands of our troops exposed to enemy fire without sufficient body armor and heavily armored Humvees. Tens of thousands of soldiers deployed to Iraq were outfitted with Vietnam-era flak jackets incapable of stopping an AK-47 round instead of the Army's best body armor because the Bush Administration had failed to procure and provide them with the needed armor kits prior to their deployment. As of December 2003, nine months after the invasion and more than a year after U.S. forces were deployed to the region, 40,000 of the 130,000 soldiers in Iraq still lacked the best body armor.

      While the Defense Department now claims to finally have distributed body armor in sufficient quantities to protect all troops, the Bush Administration has still failed to provide other equipment that could make our troops more secure. For example, more than 10,000 of the 12,000 Humvees in Iraq are currently without adequate armor. The Bush Administration's Fiscal Year 2005 budget would provide funding for the construction of 818 new armored Humvees, but provides zero funding for upgrading the 10,000 vulnerable vehicles already in Iraq. The Army does not expect a full compliment of heavily armored Humvees to arrive in Iraq for more than a year.

    * Democrats voted to increase funding for protective gear, including body armor. In an effort to address this problem, on October 2, 2003, Democrats supported an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2004 Supplemental Appropriations bill, introduced by Senator Dodd, that would have provided an additional $322 million for safety equipment, including body armor. Republicans united to defeat this amendment, tabling it by a 49-37 vote (Vote No. 376).

      Democrats also strongly supported an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2003 Supplemental Appropriations bill, offered by Senator Landrieu, that would have appropriated $1.047 billion for National Guard and Reserve procurement. Despite the fact that National Guard and Reserve troops serving in Iraq are the most likely to lack appropriate body armor, Republicans tabled this amendment on April 2, 2003, in a 52-47 vote (Vote No. 116). Finally, during the course of last year's appropriations process, Senator Leahy successfully worked with his colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to add $220 million to the National Guard and Reserve discretionary equipment account...

By Steve Holland Jan 10, 2005
WASHINGTON (Reuters)

President George W. Bush denounced some Democratic critics of the Iraq war as irresponsible on Tuesday and he wanted an election-year debate that "brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries"

In a speech, Bush made clear he was girding for battle with Democrats in the run-up to the mid-term congressional election in November, when he will try to keep the U.S. Congress in the hands of his Republican Party amid American doubts about his Iraq policy.

"There is a difference between responsible and irresponsible debate and it's even more important to conduct this debate responsibly when American troops are risking their lives overseas," Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars....

...The president also urged disaffected Sunni Arabs to join in the governing process in Iraq, saying "compromise and consensus and power-sharing are the only path to national unity and lasting democracy."

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