Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
March 22, 2009
Pg. 1D
Equipment to stop insurgent ambushes is threatened by budget cuts.
By Antonio Gil Morales, Special to the Star-Telegram
Consider the number 30,724.
Its not the enrollment of a major university, or the capacity of Fenway Park in Boston. Its the number of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq.
Never since Vietnam have so many sons and daughters returned from war struggling with new disabilities, a daily reminder of their courage and the terrible cost of protecting our freedom.
Advances in military medicine have saved many U.S. troops who otherwise would have been killed by roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire in Iraq and Afghanistan. For every combat fatality in Iraq, 15 men and women are wounded, more than five times the figure for Vietnam or Korea.
To be sure, President Barack Obama has put troop safety at the top of his list of priorities. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki, a combat-wounded veteran, has promised to correct many of the veterans’ healthcare scandals of the Bush administration, delivering the benefits that our wounded warriors more than deserve.
But what the new president really needs to do for soldiers is to make the battlefield safer for them in the first place.
How? Ironically, Shinseki proposed the solution when he was Army chief of staff: Future Combat Systems, which is the first wholesale modernization of the Army in a generation and would increase protection against roadside bombs and deliver new surveillance equipment to help today’s soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan catch insurgents before they create ambushes.
By preventing instead of simply surviving insurgent attacks, FCS will safeguard troops and help us ultimately win the war.
But with the economic crisis at home, some green-eyeshade bureaucrats are urging a cut in the lifesaving FCS program, putting us years behind.
In fact, upgraded Army equipment is decades overdue — something befuddled war planners realized at the cost of many soldiers’ lives in 2003, when Army Humvees were shown to be no match for insurgents’ relatively crude roadside bombs.
While the U.S. has procured whiz-bang fighter jets and developed state-of-the-art smart missiles, Army brigades still rely on equipment designed in the 1970s to fight the Soviets. Technology designed to defeat low-level but deadly insurgencies like the one in Iraq has scarcely advanced since Vietnam.
Counterinsurgency requires entirely different tactics. Instead of relying on overwhelming force, the name of the game is intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Staying one step ahead of the enemy keeps you alive and helps you win.
And the way to do that, most military experts agree, is by using new reconnaissance technology and unmanned vehicles.
And that is what the FCS program is all about.
Its fleet of small remote-controlled aircraft can hover over cities or rugged terrain, providing a steady stream of surveillance video of insurgent movement. Its remote-controlled ground robots can even scout out possible improvised explosive devices and explore potential insurgent safe houses.
And thanks to the FCS network, this information beams directly to the platoon on the ground, instead of having to pass through the higher headquarters first.
The immediate intelligence yielded from these robots can make the difference between life and death.
For instance, by sending an unmanned aircraft ahead of a supply convoy (a favorite target for insurgents), an FCS-equipped unit might spy insurgents crouching with rocket-propelled grenades, suggesting that the road ahead is rigged with powerful IEDs.
Instead of wading into a killing zone, the convoy would radio for a precise air strike on the insurgents and a bomb squad to detect and disable the IEDs. And should an FCS-armored vehicle trigger a roadside bomb, its unprecedented 360-degree advanced armor and V-shaped hull will result in reduced casualties.
The budget cutters, while quietly acknowledging the lifesaving potential of the FCS program, have resorted to the sheepish argument that the FCS technology is still unproven and is behind schedule.
But nearly all FCS equipment is now in hardware testing, or early iterations are in use in Iraq, and the program was accelerated to deliver many of its capabilities ahead of schedule.
Moreover, the significant cost increases have been due to the Army’s decision to speed delivery of the lifesaving FCS equipment to more brigades and to incorporate the hard-won lessons learned from today’s conflicts into the program — a sound investment in our troops.
As the recession drains federal and state coffers, everyone understands the need to make tough budget cuts.
However, the value of our sons and daughters overseas far exceeds the cost of FCS, which is no more than 4 to 6 percent of the Army budget in any given year.
If Congress and the president are willing to invest in thousands of mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles to keep our soldiers safe when hit by a bomb, they should be eager to find a way to prevent that bomb from exploding in the first place.
FCS is a smart investment that will save our troops lives, as well as their limbs.
Antonio Gil Morales of Fort Worth is the national commander of the American GI Forum of the United States.
March 22, 2009
Pg. 1D
Equipment to stop insurgent ambushes is threatened by budget cuts.
By Antonio Gil Morales, Special to the Star-Telegram
Consider the number 30,724.
Its not the enrollment of a major university, or the capacity of Fenway Park in Boston. Its the number of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq.
Never since Vietnam have so many sons and daughters returned from war struggling with new disabilities, a daily reminder of their courage and the terrible cost of protecting our freedom.
Advances in military medicine have saved many U.S. troops who otherwise would have been killed by roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire in Iraq and Afghanistan. For every combat fatality in Iraq, 15 men and women are wounded, more than five times the figure for Vietnam or Korea.
To be sure, President Barack Obama has put troop safety at the top of his list of priorities. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki, a combat-wounded veteran, has promised to correct many of the veterans’ healthcare scandals of the Bush administration, delivering the benefits that our wounded warriors more than deserve.
But what the new president really needs to do for soldiers is to make the battlefield safer for them in the first place.
How? Ironically, Shinseki proposed the solution when he was Army chief of staff: Future Combat Systems, which is the first wholesale modernization of the Army in a generation and would increase protection against roadside bombs and deliver new surveillance equipment to help today’s soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan catch insurgents before they create ambushes.
By preventing instead of simply surviving insurgent attacks, FCS will safeguard troops and help us ultimately win the war.
But with the economic crisis at home, some green-eyeshade bureaucrats are urging a cut in the lifesaving FCS program, putting us years behind.
In fact, upgraded Army equipment is decades overdue — something befuddled war planners realized at the cost of many soldiers’ lives in 2003, when Army Humvees were shown to be no match for insurgents’ relatively crude roadside bombs.
While the U.S. has procured whiz-bang fighter jets and developed state-of-the-art smart missiles, Army brigades still rely on equipment designed in the 1970s to fight the Soviets. Technology designed to defeat low-level but deadly insurgencies like the one in Iraq has scarcely advanced since Vietnam.
Counterinsurgency requires entirely different tactics. Instead of relying on overwhelming force, the name of the game is intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Staying one step ahead of the enemy keeps you alive and helps you win.
And the way to do that, most military experts agree, is by using new reconnaissance technology and unmanned vehicles.
And that is what the FCS program is all about.
Its fleet of small remote-controlled aircraft can hover over cities or rugged terrain, providing a steady stream of surveillance video of insurgent movement. Its remote-controlled ground robots can even scout out possible improvised explosive devices and explore potential insurgent safe houses.
And thanks to the FCS network, this information beams directly to the platoon on the ground, instead of having to pass through the higher headquarters first.
The immediate intelligence yielded from these robots can make the difference between life and death.
For instance, by sending an unmanned aircraft ahead of a supply convoy (a favorite target for insurgents), an FCS-equipped unit might spy insurgents crouching with rocket-propelled grenades, suggesting that the road ahead is rigged with powerful IEDs.
Instead of wading into a killing zone, the convoy would radio for a precise air strike on the insurgents and a bomb squad to detect and disable the IEDs. And should an FCS-armored vehicle trigger a roadside bomb, its unprecedented 360-degree advanced armor and V-shaped hull will result in reduced casualties.
The budget cutters, while quietly acknowledging the lifesaving potential of the FCS program, have resorted to the sheepish argument that the FCS technology is still unproven and is behind schedule.
But nearly all FCS equipment is now in hardware testing, or early iterations are in use in Iraq, and the program was accelerated to deliver many of its capabilities ahead of schedule.
Moreover, the significant cost increases have been due to the Army’s decision to speed delivery of the lifesaving FCS equipment to more brigades and to incorporate the hard-won lessons learned from today’s conflicts into the program — a sound investment in our troops.
As the recession drains federal and state coffers, everyone understands the need to make tough budget cuts.
However, the value of our sons and daughters overseas far exceeds the cost of FCS, which is no more than 4 to 6 percent of the Army budget in any given year.
If Congress and the president are willing to invest in thousands of mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles to keep our soldiers safe when hit by a bomb, they should be eager to find a way to prevent that bomb from exploding in the first place.
FCS is a smart investment that will save our troops lives, as well as their limbs.
Antonio Gil Morales of Fort Worth is the national commander of the American GI Forum of the United States.
