GIs Lack Armor, Radios, Bullets

What About The Troops, Asks 60 Minute's Steve Kroft

(CBS)  There are still no good answers to those questions. Most of the vehicles in Iraq arrived there without armor plating, because the Pentagon war planners didn't anticipate a long, bloody insurgency.

But 18 months after President Bush declared an end of major combat, the Pentagon is still struggling to provide the equipment needed to fight the war.

Oregon Rep. Darlene Hooley, a Democrat whose district includes Gen. Byrne's National Guard, complained to the secretary of defense. She says she thinks the vehicles are not fully armored yet because military planners didn't anticipate an insurgency.

"We didn't have enough armored vehicles," says Hooley. "They weren't manufactured."

Congress has appropriated additional money for armored trucks and Humvees, over $800 million in the current defense bill.

The Army told 60 Minutes they will have produced 8,100 fully-armored Humvees by March.

However, production is lagging behind the urgent need, and the Pentagon's interim solution is shipping so-called "add-on armor" kits to Iraq, where they are being bolted on to thousands of vehicles.

But most of those add-ons don't protect the bottom of the vehicle, leaving them vulnerable to an explosive device.

And it isn't the only equipment problem facing soldiers in Iraq.

Oregon guardsman Sean Davis told 60 Minutes that his unit was short on ammunition and night-vision goggles, and lacked radios to communicate with each other.

He says guardsman were using walkie-talkies that they or their families purchased from a sporting goods or similar store. "And anybody can pick up those signals, you know," he says. "And we don't have the radios that we need."

Gen. Byrne says stories are true about families in Oregon having to go out and buy their sons and daughters radio equipment, body armor, GPS gear, computers and night-vision goggles that weren't being issued.

He said some units are also using Vietnam-era M-16 assault rifles, which he calls adequate for state duty but not acceptable for duty in Iraq. There is also a bullet shortage for training, he says.

It bothers him, but "there's nothing I can do about it," he says.

"If I was making the decisions, I would readjust," he says. "The soldier on the ground should be a focus. When that's taken care of you, can take care of other stuff."

The Army acknowledged to 60 Minutes that there is a shortage of radios in Iraq and a shortage of bullets for training, and says both are in the process of being remedied. There have also been problems with maintenance and replacement parts for critical equipment like Abrams tanks, Bradley personnel carriers and Black Hawk helicopters.

Winslow Wheeler, a long time Capitol Hill staffer who spent years writing and reviewing defense appropriations bills, thinks he knows one reason why those shortages exist, after looking at the current Defense budget. Army accounts that pay for training, maintenance and repairs are being raided by Congress to pay for pork-barrel spending.

Wheeler says $2.8 billion that was earmarked for operations and maintenance to support U.S. troops has been used to "pay the pork bill."

Wheeler, who has written a book called "The Wastrels of Defense," says congressmen routinely hide billions of dollars in pet projects in the defense bill.

And buried in the back of this one, Wheeler found a biathlon jogging track in Alaska, a brown tree snake eradication program in Hawaii, a parade ground maintenance contract for a military base that closed years ago, and money for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial celebration.

By law, these projects can't be cut, so Pentagon bookkeepers will have to dip into operations and maintenance accounts to pay for them.

"They do all kinds of things that adds up to: 'We're basically eating our own young to support the war,'" he says.

According to Sen. McCain, a member of the Armed Services Committee who speaks out against pork-barrel spending, there is a total of $8.9 billion of pork in this year's defense bill, which would go a long way toward upgrading all the equipment used by the National Guard.

"I don't think that this war has truly come home to the Congress of the United States," McCain says. "This is the first time in history that we've cut taxes during a war. So I think that a lot of members of Congress feel that this is just sort of a business-as-usual situation."

"The least sexy items are the mundane - food, repair items, maintenance – there's no big contract there," says McCain. "And so there's a tendency that those mundane but vital aspects of war fighting are cut and routinely underfunded."

It is not a comforting thought for families with loved ones in Iraq, who lack armored vehicles, radios or things they need to stay alive. It's on Karen Preston's mind every time she talks to her son.

"He's very pro-military, as am I," she says. "I just want them to have the best equipment."

Some armored vehicles have now been shipped to her son's unit, but without protection on the bottom of the vehicle, an insurgent's explosive is just as deadly.

Pepin of the New York Guard says, "It's kind of like an act of faith. When you get in your vehicle, you just hope, you know. Say a little prayer before you go out."

Acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee wrote to 60 Minutes, saying, "The Army has made great strides in improving the capabilities of all units deploying to Iraq as the nature of the conflict has changed."

He noted the president approved spending $840 million to improve the armor on Humvees in Iraq.