Our warriors deserve the best weapons

By JAMES P. PINKERTON
LONG ISLAND NEWSDAY
OK, we're going to "surge" in Iraq. But the question is, surge with what? Will we surge with expendable technology or with the precious blood of our men and women?
Unfortunately, President Bush doesn't have much of a choice, because we have underinvested in the machinery that would boost our prospects for victory.
Today the U.S. battle plan in Iraq and Afghanistan can be summed up in one term: "labor-intensive." We send our best war fighters into harm's way in under-armored vehicles and with insufficient logistical support.
Under-armored? Insufficient? Who says so? The U.S. Army, that's who. Here's Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the Army's deputy chief of staff for force development, in Tuesday's Washington Post: "We don't have the (armor) kits, and we don't have the trucks." Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was barely right when he said, in 2004, "You have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." If war comes suddenly, as with Pearl Harbor in 1941, then of course we have to fight immediately with whatever we have. But even then, in the middle of a war, it's important to learn lessons and apply them immediately.
Moreover, as the fighting drags on, we would further hope that our politico-military leadership would rush to embrace the latest in technology, not only to maximize prospects of victory, but also to minimize cost in American lives. The 45 months of World War II, for example, witnessed an efflorescence of new technological developments on the American side, from improved tanks and torpedoes to all-new jet aircraft and even the atomic bomb. Each of these innovations was costly, but more than worth the money.
We might ask: Has there been a similar evolution of American "miltech" in the 46 months that we have been in Iraq? And if not, why not?
Consider the situation in which we find ourselves after nearly four years of fighting. Americans ride around "on patrol." But are our folks conducting combat operations or are they just sitting ducks? OK, moving ducks, but still ducks.
Redcoats
One gets the sad feeling that the Americans, in their high-profile vehicles, will be remembered as the 21st-century equivalent of the 18th-century Redcoats, the British soldiers who marched in tidy formation through the forests of the 13 colonies, vulnerable to being picked off by American snipers hiding behind trees. The British couldn't or wouldn't adapt to the challenge. And so they lost men, then the war itself.
Today our armed forces are discovering the latest evolution of American-killing bomb technology, maybe having emerged from a laboratory in, say, Iran or Russia. And now comes the latest iteration of the improvised explosive device -- the cause of most American casualties in Iraq -- known as the explosively formed projectile. The EFP provides a sobering reminder that enemies are evolving their weaponry; indeed, they might even be gaining an edge. Here's the assessment of Globalsecurity.org's John Pike, in the pages of USA Today, describing the EFP's lethality: "It goes through armor like a hot knife through butter." Why, after four years, haven't we figured out how to detect and clear away EFPs and other mine- and booby-trap-style weapons? More to the point, why haven't we transcended the whole issue of "boots on the ground?" If our leaders had really wanted to succeed in Iraq, they would have spent whatever it took to equip our military with the tools of triumph.
Should our warriors perhaps be flying overhead in personalized aircraft? Or should we have automated the battlefield completely, using only expendable robot soldiers? Such weapons might be the stuff of science fiction, but there's nothing wrong with a little imagination when trying to win a war.
And there's everything wrong with not giving our men and women the best weapons possible, no matter what they cost.
Pinkerton is a columnist for Newsday. Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service