From the NYT:


It's hard to imagine what the Pentagon was thinking when it told the American
Army and Marine replacement divisions bound for Iraq earlier this year to leave
their tanks and other heavily armored vehicles behind. American military
planners seem to have ignored evidence that armed resistance to the occupation
was far from suppressed. As a result, they failed to anticipate the kinds of
ambushes and urban firefights these troops are now caught up in and against
which tanks and armored personnel carriers afford the best protection.

That costly miscalculation has left American soldiers in their thin-skinned
Humvees nearly defenseless against the rocket-propelled grenades, roadside
bombs and AK-47 rifle fire they face almost daily. While political spokesmen
have played down the seriousness of the fighting that has killed 126 Americans
just this month, field commanders have been pleading desperately for more
armor.

This week, the Pentagon finally ordered that thousands of armored vehicles be
sent to Iraq, from 70-ton Abrams tanks to lighter and faster Bradley and
Stryker combat vehicles, plus an armored version of the Humvee, whose
production is now being accelerated. Every effort must be made to speed the
movement of this badly needed equipment to minimize future American casualties.

The Defense Department now tries to justify its earlier mistake of leaving the
heavy armor behind by arguing that tankbound soldiers are poorly suited to
engaging with the Iraqi civilian population and winning hearts and minds. True
enough, but having the tanks on hand would not have prevented such efforts in
more secure areas, and would have saved lives in battle zones like Falluja and
Najaf.

More than American troop reinforcements and heavier armor will be needed to
resolve the underlying political problems in Iraq. That will take, at a
minimum, a credible transfer of sovereignty to a representative Iraqi governing
body backed by the legitimacy of full United Nations involvement. Meanwhile,
for as long as American troops are needed, they must be properly equipped.

This latest military planning fiasco seems yet another example of the
Pentagon's damaging insistence that American ground forces make do with fewer
troops and lighter equipment than they really need to carry out the mission
they have been assigned in Iraq. This page shares the long-term goal of
transforming the Army into a more mobile and agile fighting force, but not at
the expense of American soldiers' lives.

From the first days of the Iraqi conflict, the Pentagon's stubborn refusal to
face up to the realities of the battlefield there has compounded the political
and military problems of occupation and needlessly endangered American
soldiers. It is past time for those lessons to be digested and for American
forces to be given the reinforcements and equipment they sorely need.