Reuters Uses Trumped-Up 2004 Story to Support Obama Military Equipment Claim
In an attempt to salvage some degree of credibility for presidential candidate Barack Obama’s assertions about military equipment shortages, Reuters reporter Andrew Gray went back to a long-discredited claim planted by a local Tennessee reporter, and resurrected a Donald Rumsfeld quote that was not relevant to his story topic.
First, Gray went to what Obama claimed, and how the Pentagon responded:
During the face-to-face encounter on Thursday evening, Obama said he had heard from an Army captain whose unit had served in Afghanistan without enough ammunition or vehicles.
Obama said it was easier for the troops to capture weapons from Taliban militants than it was “to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief,” President George W. Bush.
“I find that account pretty hard to imagine,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.
“Despite the stress that we readily acknowledge on the force, one of the things that we do is make sure that all of our units and service members that are going into harm’s way are properly trained, equipped and with the leadership to be successful,” he said.
Whitman’s remarks were unusual as the Pentagon often declines to talk about comments from political campaigns.
Rough translation of the way-too-polite Pentagonese: Baloney claims like this are rarely raised by politicians, but this one was so out there we had to debunk it.
Gray then attempted to portray Obama’s claim as part of a longstanding pattern:
Military equipment shortages have been a big U.S. political issue, particularly in the early years of the Iraq war.
A U.S. soldier confronted then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the topic in Kuwait in 2004, complaining that troops were forced to dig up scrap metal to protect their vehicles because the military did not have enough armor.
Rumsfeld famously replied that “you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time” — a remark that drew widespread criticism.
Gray conveniently “forgot” to inform readers that the soldier who “confronted” Rumsfeld was a National Guardsman coached by Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts, who later bragged about what he did in an e-mail.
The truth, of course, is more complicated than Gray’s last few paragraphs would lead you to believe, and casts the military’s attention to readiness in a more favorable light, as this December 2004 post at 2Slick’s Forum indicates (bold is mine; italics is 2Slick’s):
The only thing unusual about this particular “town hall meeting” was the fact that the press was invited. My coworkers and I wondered aloud about the wisdom of this decision, and I still can’t really see the logic there. The only thing I can think of is that the SECDEF intended to show that he has nothing to hide- sort of like a “full public disclosure” kind of thing. The problem with this is obvious. When the cameras are rolling and a soldier stands up and asks why the military isn’t doing anything to properly equip him for war, guess what happens? That’s right- the media machine immediately establishes a new “truth”- in this case it’s that the military is not equipping the force. Absolutely no effort is made to fact-check the soldier- his word is taken as pure gospel.
….. What SPC Wilson might not be aware of (at his level)- is that all vehicles that drive north into Iraq are required to have “level 3″ armor protection. If a vehicle does not meet this standard, it will not be driven up north- it will be carried on a flatbed truck. Once in Iraq, armored vehicles are used for driving off post, and unarmored vehicles are used for driving around on post. This policy is put out to each unit’s commanders well before the unit even arrives to Kuwait.
2Slick also mentioned that there was a significant ramp-up in production of needed vehicles in progress at the time. It turns out that additional vehicles were not produced as quickly as desired during the next few years. But the idea that soldiers weren’t, and aren’t, being provided the best of what was, and is, available is absurd — as is Grey’s reference back to the December 2004 incident, and Rumsfeld’s “famous reply,” as some kind of evidence that Obama had a valid point earlier this week.
The Pentagon has as much as said that Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and what Gray dredged up from 2004 doesn’t change that.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.
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UPDATE, Feb. 23: Oh, this headline from Rusty at My Pet Jawa is great — “ABC ‘Fact Checks’ by Quoting Same Unamed Source as Obama” — as is his post. ABC’s Jack Tapper, who has his lucid moments, was apparently so relieved that the guy BOOHOO (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi†Obama) referred to actually exists — as opposed to, say, certain characters in one of Obama’s books — that he had no skepticism about what he had to say. MPJ has quite a few pick-aparts.
UPDATE, Feb. 24: My head hurts after this from Confederate Yankee —
We then find out that when this officer “didn’t have enough ammunition, they didn’t have enough humvees,” he was referring to practice ammunition for two kinds of heavy weapons while in Fort Drum, New York.
That’s about 6,500 miles or so from Afghanistan. Other than that, the related claim by Obama holds up (/sarcasm).
UPDATE, Feb. 26: Here’s a big “so what?” from NPR brought to may attention by a commenter:
Gen. George Casey, the Army’s chief of staff, said Tuesday he has no reason to doubt Barack Obama’s recent account by an Army captain that a rifle platoon in Afghanistan didn’t have enough soldiers or weapons. But he questioned the assertion that the shortages prevented the troops from doing their job.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Casey said the incident would have occurred in 2003 and 2004 following the Iraq invasion. He said he remembers it as a “difficult time” trying to rush armor and other equipment to the troops.
The bolded text is where I’m leaving it. The central point of my post was that a Reuters reporter went back to yet another bogus 2004-related matter to support Obama’s assertion, which is at best half-true, and, if it didn’t affect troops’ abilities to do their jobs, is totally ….. bleeping ….. irrelevant.
Obama didn’t mention that what he was wasting the world’s time with in last week’s debate was something 4-5 years old that has no known bearing on current affairs. I’m not going to waste another minute on it, lest we waste yet more time a discussion over whether troops were prepared at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, which is why comments on this post have been closed.
“The Pentagon has as much as said that Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about…”
Your good buddy, Jake Tapper, begs to differ.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/from-the-fact-3.html
Comment by Tom D. Bunker — February 22, 2008 @ 10:41 pm
Yawn. Let him. The info is from 2003 and 2004. That’s not a story — It’s truly an old clunker.
Commenters are weighing in at Tapper’s place. You should do the same.
Comment by TBlumer — February 23, 2008 @ 12:34 am
Or read this:
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/255488.php
Comment by TBlumer — February 23, 2008 @ 12:54 am
You continue to yawn at the truth, Tom. The Party, above all else!
Obama shared what he’d heard from an Army Captain. ABC and now NBC have confirmed that this Captain exists, and that he told Obama exactly what Obama reported. How did Obama lie? You guys blew this one, but once again are unable to acknowledge it.
Comment by Tom D. Bunker — February 23, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
#4, what about …..
(http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/255488.php)
++++++++++++++++++
Obama’s most crucial, explosive claim, that “: They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief” remains utterly and completely false.
And that part, it seems, he made up by himself.
++++++++++++++++++
….. don’t you understand?
Comment by TBlumer — February 23, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
…. or this:
++++++++++++++++
The left wishes to reduce Obama’s statement to the uncontroversial assertion that supply in theater is difficult. But that’s not what he said. He claimed that US soldiers were actually forced to capture enemy weaponry for lack of their own, and that soldiers were plucked out of his unit for deployment in Iraq. The first isn’t true by the Captain’s own admission and the latter seems extremely doubtful.
++++++++++++++++
“HOW DID OBAMA LIE?” You’re still asking?
If you’re not embarrassed yet, you should be, and it doesn’t have a bleeping thing to do with “party.”
Comment by TBlumer — February 23, 2008 @ 2:29 pm
Tom,
They didn’t buy those Taliban weapons on eBay, so of course they were captured.
Confederate Yankee is no better at acknowledging mistakes than you are.
Comment by Tom D. Bunker — February 23, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
zzzzzz ….. non-responsive to 5 and 6 ….. zzzzzz
Comment by TBlumer — February 23, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
This the same week that Osama Obama declared he has never and would never vote money for the troops in the field. I guess he thinks the troops should ’steal’ everything, including food, they need. Yep, he’s a great help to the troops, on the other side. Voting for either of the democrats will fulfill your death wish.
Comment by Scrapiron — February 23, 2008 @ 6:22 pm
No Tom,
I was responding directly to #5 and #6. ConfederateYanker can’t read, and you apparently won’t.
Scrapiron, what are you talking about? Please provide us with a link to that quote.
Comment by Tom D. Bunker — February 23, 2008 @ 8:54 pm
#10, and you can’t listen. BOOHOO full quote at CY’s YouTube:
++++++++++++++++++++++
“I heard from a(n) Army captain, who was a member of a rifle platoon. You’re supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. (He) ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24, because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.
And as a consequence they didn’t have enough ammunition, they didn’t have enough Humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.”
++++++++++++++++++++
The second para, the claim that they had to proactively scrounge around and capture Taliban weapons in order to be properly equipped (stuff captured from the Taliban would not be “proper equipment”), has been shown to be false, and no amount of shouting that it’s true will change that.
Please only respond if you have something to add. If you don’t have anything to add, it won’t be added here.
#7 and #10 added nothing.
Comment by TBlumer — February 24, 2008 @ 12:22 am
Tom,
Try really reading this, from Jake Tapper, quoting and paraphrasing the Captain:
>>They also didn’t have the humvees they were supposed to have both before deployment and once they were in Afghanistan, the Captain says.
“We should have had 4 up-armored humvees,” he said. “We were supposed to. But at most we had three operable humvees, and it was usually just two.”
So what did they do? “To get the rest of the platoon to the fight,” he says, “we would use Toyota Hilux pickup trucks or unarmored flatbed humvees.” Sometimes with sandbags, sometimes without.
Also in Afghanistan they had issues getting parts for their MK-19s and their 50-cals. Getting parts or ammunition for their standard rifles was not a problem.
“It was very difficult to get any parts in theater,” he says, “because parts are prioritized to the theater where they were needed most — so they were going to Iraq not Afghanistan.”
“The purpose of going after the Taliban was not to get their weapons,” he said, but on occasion they used Taliban weapons. Sometimes AK-47s, and they also mounted a Soviet-model DShK (or “Dishka”) on one of their humvees instead of their 50 cal.<<
Comment by Tom D. Bunker — February 24, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
I can’t believe you’re pushing this considering this direct quote:
“The purpose of going after the Taliban was not to get their weapons,†he said, but on occasion they used Taliban weapons.”
That directly contradicts Obama, who said they HAD to get Tban weapons to be properly equipped. Basically, after that, nothing else is important. You could directly contradict everything else (I’m not conceding at all that you have), and it wouldn’t matter to me.
The original point of the post was to refer back to trumped-up garbage from 2004, and that point stands.
You’re “right” in one sense. This proven misrepresentation is by no means the biggest or greatest gaffe or mistake of his campaign so far. BOOHOO and his wife have at least a half dozen stacked up already, and it’s only February.
Comment by TBlumer — February 24, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
Unlike you, Tom, I don’t cherry-pick quotes to eliminate context.
Why do you think they sometimes used the Taliban weapons they captured, Tom? Could it be they weren’t properly equipped without them? What do you think the Captain meant when he said, “It was very difficult to get any parts in theater, because parts are prioritized to the theater where they were needed most — so they were going to Iraq not Afghanistan?â€
And what do you suppose Jake Tapper meant when he wrote, “I find that Obama’s anecdote checks out?â€
Comment by Tom D. Bunker — February 24, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
#14, unlike you, I tend to believe the military brass that has the big-picture understanding over one soldier who likely doesn’t.
The soldier says he didn’t have what he needed; the brass says he does, and did. I tend to believe the brass, esp because the milbloggers don’t hesitate to call out the brass when they’re wrong.
The soldier says his unit was split up; the brass, along with milbloggers and others in a position to know, says it doesn’t ever happen. Again, I tend to believe the brass, esp because the milbloggers don’t hesitate to call out the brass when they’re wrong.
The regret I have about wasting my time on these comments is that the post was about the author’s misuse of a staged event 4 years ago. It wasn’t about defending or not defending Tapper, though most of what he wrote isn’t.
It “checks out” in the sense that the soldier does exist (a major step for a story uttered by a Dem), but most if not all of what the soldier says doesn’t (sorry, pal).
The other fundamentally dishonest point largely missed is that BOOHOO’s vid (just re-read) makes no reference to what year he is talking about. The viewer is left to infer that this is a current problem, not a hangover from 2004. That’s probably the greatest deception of them all.
Comment by TBlumer — February 24, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
I know what your post was about. Still, you ended it with, “The Pentagon has as much as said that Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about…†It was a garbage line, Tom, and you still can’t acknowledge it.
Tom, if “the brass†has claimed that a unit is never split up, please link us to that. I know the right-wing milbloggers made that claim, but the ABC and MSNBC reporting quickly debunked them. The unit in question deployed to Afghanistan short-handed, Tom.
Is it possible that you just joined the echo chamber in when you shouldn’t have?
Comment by Tom D. Bunker — February 25, 2008 @ 12:48 am
“The Pentagon has as much as said that Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about…â€
Last I checked, whatever MSNBC and ABC supposedly found hasn’t caused the Pentagon to backtrack. Therefore the italicized statement was true, and it’s still true. The Pentagon at that moment said that Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Even if the Pentagon is proven wrong, which it hasn’t been, and acknowledges it someday, which it hasn’t, the sentence was framed as it was to avoid getting into the inevitable noisemaking to follow.
The lesson is not to get distracted from the post’s purpose by a baiting commenter.
Starting now. Lesson learned. See ya.
Comment by TBlumer — February 25, 2008 @ 1:18 am
Actual “brass†heard from.
Casey: Obama’s Shortages Claim Plausible
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=28242288
See Feb. 26 update. This matter is closed at this blog.
Comment by Tom D. Bunker — February 26, 2008 @ 8:40 pm