[Peace-discuss] Defective equipment

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

As I have said before, we must emphasize this issue to stop deployment of 
troops into war and death.

doug  

Bio/Chem Attack Protection Questioned
Feb. 14, 2003


Twelve years after chemical and biological weapons were discovered in Iraq’s 
arsenal during the Gulf War, U.S. forces massing for a possible attack on 
Iraq are still not properly prepared to encounter such weapons. 

Politicians, current and former military members and even Congress’s own 
General Accounting Office tell Mike Wallace that American soldiers do not 
have enough training or equipment needed to survive a chemical or biological 
attack. Wallace’s report will be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, Feb. 16, at 
7 p.m., ET/PT. 

Troops in the field are so frustrated by the lack of preparedness that they 
have twisted the acronym NBC, for nuclear, biological chemical warfare. 
“Truth to tell, the troopers call it, ‘Nobody Cares:’ NBC,” says retired 
Col. David Hackworth, an advocate of soldier’s rights. “What they’ve been 
saying to me is that they don’t trust their gear. They don’t think it will 
work in a desert environment where it’s burning hot. A soldier without 
confidence is in trouble,” Hackworth says. 

Until recently, NBC training was not even a factor measured in assessing the 
readiness of military units. Retired Capt. Eric Taylor, who studied the 
matter for a Cato Institute report, says commanders never thought they would 
face NBC. “An annoyance, as a waste of time, as a joke,” is how Taylor says 
commanders viewed NBC. “I understand we are now dispatching specialized teams 
to do crash training, almost on-the-job training. You don’t do on-the-job 
training with these things. These things will kill you,” Taylor says. 

Some of the protection available could get a soldier killed. If initial waves 
of troops run out of new gear, they would have to resort to older protective 
suits, up to 250,000 of which have potentially fatal defects and are still 
unaccounted for. There have also been errors made, such as gas masks issued 
with training filters instead of the real thing and shortages of protective 
suits. 

The Pentagon’s head of chemical and biological preparedness acknowledges 
there have been problems, but says they’re being addressed, especially 
warning troops about the 250,000 defective suits and trying to locate them. 
Otherwise, training is being done and soldiers are ready, says Dr. Anna 
Johnson-Winegar. “We have world-class equipment. We’ve made this a priority. 
Our young men and women…are trained. They know what to do,” she tells 
Wallace. 

The GAO would not allow its NBC investigator, Raymond Decker, to be 
interviewed for this report, but he told Congress that despite a recent push 
to prioritize NBC training, it’s still not enough in the face of such awesome 
weapons. 

Says Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), chairman of the House National 
Security Subcommittee, “We’ve had 12 years now to deal with it. We haven’t. 
We’re still hearing from people out in the field that they’re not getting 
this equipment yet and they’re not training in it,” he says.