While all the news agencies is busy comparing the recent friendly fire deaths in Iraq to the death of Pat Tillman, Editor and Publisher has the scoop on something even more disturbing regarding the incident:
One of the soldiers died just hours after arriving in Iraq — and was one of those troops rushed to the country in the “surge” who did not receive full training.
Not even a month after this happened, Tony Snow was making light of the news that troops were being rushed into combat, without training.
Q There was also a report this morning that two Army combat brigades are being sent to Iraq without desert training — the Associated Press has a story out today — and that it’s because they’re being rushed to Iraq to help get the surge in place.
MR. SNOW: Again, let me stress, what happens is, a lot of times you will also do training in theaters, as well as equipping in theater. The generals have made it very clear, and military commanders have made it clear, nobody is going to go into combat activity without proper equipment and training. Period. So if things –
Q But the story flatly says that two brigades are going in without desert training in California. So that doesn’t sound like –
MR. SNOW: All right, I understand.
Q — they’re getting the training.
MR. SNOW: Well, but they can get desert training elsewhere, like in Iraq.
Now we have deadly proof of the failed logic behind this. The other point to be made here is that we have even more proof of how much George Bush has destroyed our military. It is time to fix our forces and that fix has to start with a change in command – specifically the commander in chief.