The oversimplified explanation of why the U.S. Army did not have enough bulletproof
vests and armored trucks for troops in Iraq is that suppliers could not keep
up with the demand.
The reality, however, is far more complicated.
Many people find it difficult to understand how it is possible that the world’s
most powerful and technologically advanced army was caught off guard, lacking
enough of the equipment that has become essential for soldiers and Marines to
survive in Iraq, such as bullet-resistant body armor, up-armored Humvees, and
anti-missile systems for helicopters.
It would be fair to contend that the Army is not entirely to blame, because
its preparations for the conflict were based on flawed Pentagon assumptions
that grossly underestimated the degree of violence and insurgency in the post-Saddam
phase of the war.
But the Army does bear responsibility for a procurement system that would make
it difficult for even the most skilled bureaucrats and shrewdest military planners
to get equipment fielded fast. The service also is paying the price for a risky
gamble—when it decided a decade ago that it could afford to stop spending
on “conventional” weapons and equipment such as armor, because there
was no major war on the horizon.
As one Army general put it, the equipment shortages seen today directly result
from deliberate budgeting decisions made in peacetime. In the mid-1990s, service
leaders saw a window of opportunity to begin a “transformation”
into a more lethal and lighter force that traded off armor in favor of computer
networks and information technology. In a transformed army, armor was an undesirable
commodity that weighed down the force. Budgets for helicopter defenses were
zeroed out, because the Army projected that the futuristic and now-defunct Comanche
helicopter would be so stealthy that no enemy missiles or rockets would detect
it.
The numbers tell a stunning story. Before the Iraqi conflict, the Army’s
budget for Interceptor body armor would have purchased enough bulletproof vests
to equip the entire force during a 48-year period. An armored security vehicle
intended for military police was budgeted as a 60-year procurement. The up-armored
Humvee was to serve only as a niche vehicle for small peacekeeping units.
“It was the way we did business,” said Brig. Gen. Charles W. Fletcher,
Army assistant deputy chief of staff for logistics. “We accepted risk
in just about everything, because we were building the future force.”
It wasn’t until November 2002—when the war plans already were in
high gear—that then Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki brought the
commanders together and directed them to start allocating funds to whatever
was needed to fight the war.
With a supplier base that only had been producing small orders for more than
a decade, the Army found out, the hard way, that it could not “buy”
itself out of the problem, Fletcher noted. “If you under-invest over a
period of time, you are still suffering. You can’t get the production
base up.”
To understand the Army’s current predicament, it is also useful to comprehend
the culture that permeates the service. In wartime, the usual turf battles inside
the Beltway often are set aside and the leadership focuses on the mission at
hand and on what soldiers need in the field. In peacetime, the rules change.
Budget battles typically pitch the institutional Army against operators who
lack clout “in the building.” Getting programs funded can turn into
all-out war. Many of the programs that do get funded subsequently get sliced,
diced and stretched during yearly budget drills.
With the Army expected to stay committed in Iraq for the foreseeable future,
those in charge are rapidly learning from their past miscalculations. Army generals
and civilian leaders now talk about “balancing” resources between
the needs of the current and the future Army, with a bias in favor of the current
force, as long as the war continues.
“I think one of the impacts of the war is that, if we keep it up, we
are going to end up transforming the acquisition process,” said Brig.
Gen. David A. Fastabend, director of concept development and experimentation
at the Army Futures Center.
Despite the overwhelming pressures to support the current war, the Army still
intends to transform without taking unnecessary risks, officials noted. The
Army’s umbrella modernization program, the Future Combat Systems, is expected
to continue, despite some indications that the Army may be willing to let the
schedule slide by a few years.
During a media roundtable last month, Army Training and Doctrine Command officials
expressed apprehension that the “short term thinkers” see a big
pot of money in FCS that would “solve a lot of problems.”
But the Army cannot afford to neglect planning for the future, despite the
tremendous challenges it now confronts, a senior official said. “We are
not at the point that we are so overwhelmed by the current fight that we would
consider pulling away from science and technology.”
It is clear that the Army has made “bad investment decisions” in
the past, said Brig. Gen. Philip Coker, director of capabilities development
at the Futures Center, who cited several examples of Army procurement faux pas.
But pointing fingers is not going to fix anything, he asserted. “The chief’s
intent is that we learn from today very aggressively, that we identify where
the gaps are, very aggressively, and where we can, we apply technology immediately.”
Back To Top