<> CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday faced open criticism from his own U.S. troops, who complained about inadequate armor for Iraq and questioned a policy that stops them from leaving the military when their voluntary term ends. The unusually blunt public exchange came at a town hall-style session with American soldiers at this camp 12 miles south of the border with Iraq, where more than 1,200 U.S. troops have died since the March 2003 invasion. Hundreds of troops applauded a comrade who complained to Rumsfeld that U.S. forces were being forced to dig up scrap metal to protect their vehicles in Iraq because of a shortage of armored ones. "Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles? And why don't we have those resources readily available to us?" the soldier asked.
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CAMP PENDLETON, CA (AP) - Standing before thousands of Marines, President Bush asked other Americans on Tuesday to make the war their own by helping battle-weary troops and their families. "The time of war is a time of sacrifice, especially for our military families," Bush said, wearing a tan military jacket with epaulets. "I urge every American to find some way to thank our military and to help out the military family down the street. In October 2001, shortly after the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan to rout the terrorist-protecting Taliban government. The military took on the additional burden of the war in Iraq starting with the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. In all that time, while traveling widely to visit military personnel and sit at the bedsides of the wounded, the president has asked little of the civilian public. But with casualties increasing and the number of U.S. troops in Iraq slated to rise before next month's planned elections there, Bush urged civilians to do more. <> Bush, who flew across the country and back in one long day to a base that has seen one of the highest casualty rates in Iraq, suggested ways Americans now can support troops and their left-behind families by citing the example of several already doing so. Groups have been established to welcome home the wounded, collect thank-you letters, build homes adapted to disabled vets, and raise money for military families who must forsake home and jobs to stand beside a recovering soldier, he said.
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<>WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 - Two Defense Department intelligence officials reported observing brutal treatment of Iraqi insurgents captured in Baghdad last June, several weeks after disclosures of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison there created a worldwide uproar, according to a memorandum disclosed today. The memorandum, written by the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency to a senior Pentagon official, said that when the two members of his agency objected to the treatment, they were threatened and told to keep quiet by other military interrogators. The memorandum said that the Defense Intelligence Agency officials saw prisoners being brought in to a detention center with burn marks on their backs and complaining about sore kidneys. The memorandum was disclosed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained it as part of a cache of documents from a civil lawsuit seeking to discover the extent of abuse of prisoners by the military.
<>WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 - Two Defense Department intelligence officials reported observing brutal treatment of Iraqi insurgents captured in Baghdad last June, several weeks after disclosures of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison there created a worldwide uproar, according to a memorandum disclosed today. The memorandum, written by the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency to a senior Pentagon official, said that when the two members of his agency objected to the treatment, they were threatened and told to keep quiet by other military interrogators. The memorandum said that the Defense Intelligence Agency officials saw prisoners being brought in to a detention center with burn marks on their backs and complaining about sore kidneys. The memorandum was disclosed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained it as part of a cache of documents from a civil lawsuit seeking to discover the extent of abuse of prisoners by the military.
GIVE UP?????
Well, the suggestion that the US government, spending 2 billion a day, cannot adequately provide for the troops, while simultaneously providing huge rebates and tax breaks for less than a couple million citizens, needs the help of its citizens to support the war is mind boggling. War by bake sale? And in providing these war support activities are all those loyal and flag colored citizens also choosing openly and honestly to support the torture of people?? Yeah, you bet. We are a nation that is so dysfunctional that all our government can do is hide the facts and spout more lies. There has always been the Real Reality of myths and fables. Midas and the Emperor's New Clothes fit all too well. I am deeply saddened by these stories all coming out the same day. It represents the catastrophic failure of government to do even as it said it would do.
