Washington Times
April 9, 2007
Pg. 17
Army Equipment Disaster
Many signs of impending collapse
By Robert H. Scales
During the Cold War the Army stockpiled thousands of weapons and vehicles in warehouses or aboard huge cargo ships in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. These trucks, humvees, tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers constituted our national reserve of weaponry. Soldiers depend on this equipment should we go to war against an enemy outside Iraq and Afghanistan. It's all gone. We emptied the last set in March. In total, nearly half of the Army's fighting equipment is wearing away in Iraq and Afghanistan or waiting forlornly for repair or disposal. Unclassified sources put the total number of broken or destroyed wheels, tracks and rotors at about 6,000.
Most Army brigades are "not combat ready" in part because of equipment shortages. Brigades consist of people and equipment, so the significance of "not combat ready" loses a great deal in translation. If an unready brigade were a ship it would be in dry dock. If it were an aircraft it would be undergoing a complete stripdown and overhaul. Virtually all of our reserve brigades and most of the Army's regular brigades outside of Iraq and Afghanistan fit into this category. The bottom line is that virtually any brigade not in Iraq cannot be equipped for war for a very, very long time.
While the true magnitude of the Army's equipment disaster remains clouded in classification, the anecdotal evidence of impending collapse is anywhere you choose to look. For the first time in nearly half a century the 82nd Airborne Division cannot generate enough combat power to put one of its brigades on strategic alert. A retired general friend visited a division at a very large post that has only 30 of its 350 tanks in working order. One general who daily works on equipment issues in the Pentagon reflected on the past: "Remember, after the collapse of the Soviet Union how the Russians left mountains of junked equipment to rust away in Eastern European motor pools? Well, we're nearly there now."
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