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From American Progress
MILITARY -- PACE ADMITS MILITARY LACKS EQUIPMENT TO SUPPORT BUSH'S ESCALATION: In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace admitted that finding enough equipment to support President Bush's escalation plan to send an addition 21,500 combat troops to Iraq would be a "problem." He said further that the "41,000 armored vehicles in Iraq" would be "fewer than will be needed to cover all the the troops that are deploying." One senior Army official suggested to the Washington Post last week that five brigades of Humveess would have to "fall out of the sky" to meet the shortfalls. Last year, the chief of the Pentagon's National Guard Bureau expressed similar sentiments, telling Congress that "at least two-thirds of his units in the United States are not combat-ready." Such shortages are not new. Indeed, the Post reported last week that Guard units have "on average, 40 percent of their required equipment," and according to Army data, "the Guard as a whole is not expected to return to minimum equipment levels until 2013." Reports of cascading supply failures are not likely to end soon. Last week the Pentagon's Inspector General told Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) that two ongoing audits of the procurement of armored vehicles and body armor for American soldiers would be forthcoming in July and October 2007.
IRAQ -- TOP RECONSTRUCTION OFFICIAL FLOWN TO BAGHDAD TO AVOID OVERSIGHT HEARING: For the first time since the war began, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) is holding aggressive oversight hearings into the billions in waste, fraud, and abuse of U.S. funds in Iraq. On Jan. 10, when President Bush first made his plans for escalation public, he also announced plans to "appoint a reconstruction coordinator in Baghdad to ensure better results for economic assistance being spent in Iraq." The next day, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named career diplomat Timothy Carney to the position. During yesterday's hearings, Waxman revealed that the State Department has blocked Carney from appearing at the hearing, despite the fact that Carney personally told Waxman he "was willing to come." Moreover, the Bush administration has apparently rushed him to Baghdad despite claiming that the reason he could not appear at the hearing was because he "did not yet know what he was going to do in Iraq." Waxman added that the State Department has "now told us that they may make him available to Congress in six months."
