In war, when leaders screw up, men die.

It’s a simple equation really. The number of soldiers who die needlessly can be directly correlated to the inverse proportion of bureaucrats and politicians who are responsible for making sure they have everything they need to do the job.

In this case of Marines speaking out about their experiences in Iraq, what becomes frighteningly clear is that from the top down – including Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his boss, the President of the United States – our civilian leadership has failed on a variety of levels to insure that the men and women they send to Iraq are given everything they need to not only do the job, but make it home in one piece to their loving families.

And while I generally try to take whatever I read in the New York Times with a grain of salt, in this case there are too many Marines willing to go on the record to ignore. There are few if any “unnamed sources.” Marines quoted in the linked article give their names and ranks. The criticism they give is professional, and to the point.

What they describe is what Marines call a “clusterf**k.”

On the rare occasions I’ve ventured to criticize the Administration’s war effort, it’s been in the area of post-invasion planning. The more we learn about the situation on the ground in the aftermath of large scale combat operations, the more we see that the Pentagon, simply put, “screwed the pooch” in just about every way imaginable.

And what also becomes clear is that despite the best efforts of Secretary Rumsfeld, the Pentagon is an ossified, backward, pitiful giant that moves at a pace that makes snails seem fleet of foot and appears to care more for it outmoded, antiquated procedures than it does about protecting their most precious resource – the men and women we ask to go into harms way and protect us.

Two years after the end of combat operations, we’re still asking soldiers and Marines to do their duty in Iraq with inferior equipment. When our warriors have to scavenge scrap metal from junkyards in order to protect themselves, something is seriously wrong.

I can understand the shortage of armored Humvees at the outset of the occupation. But to have two years go by with the problem unresolved is just plain criminal:

Company E’s experiences still resonate today both in Iraq, where two more marines were killed last week in Ramadi by the continuing insurgency, and in Washington, where Congress is still struggling to solve the Humvee problem. Just on Thursday, the Senate voted to spend an extra $213 million to buy more fully armored Humvee. The Army’s procurement system, which also supplies the Marines, has come under fierce criticism for under performing in the war, and to this day it has only one small contractor in Ohio armoring new Humvee.

Marine Corps officials disclosed last month in Congressional hearings that they were now going their own way and had undertaken a crash program to equip all of their more than 2,800 Humvee in Iraq with stronger armor. The effort went into production in November and is to be completed at the end of this year.

“...and to this day it has only one small contractor in Ohio armoring new Humvee.” (???)

Are you trying to tell me that out of the $420 billion we’re spending on the defense of the United States of America that we can only find one small company in Ohio to armor our Humvees two years after the occupation began?

This is preposterous.

Also two years after the occupation began “Marine Corps officials disclosed last month in Congressional hearings that they were now going their own way and had undertaken a crash program to equip all of their more than 2,800 Humvees in Iraq with stronger armor.”

LAST MONTH! What in God’s name have you been doing for the last two years while the men you’re responsible for protecting have been getting blown to bits?

If I had family in Iraq I’d be on my way to Washington right now. I’d camp myself in front of Rummy’s office and demand that he see me. And when I got in there, (and I have no doubt that he would see me, the Secretary proving time and again that he does care about the men under his command) I’d let him have it with both barrels, telling him exactly what I thought of the job he and the brass hats sitting on their overly ample asses are doing.

There is some historical context to how military organizations have always viewed the troops. Until the Crimean war and Florence Nightingale, the value of an individual soldier was judged by what he could do for that army on the battlefield. If he got sick or wounded, armies pretty much let the poor devil fend for himself. Army doctors were notorious for incompetence. And even if dedicated, the state of medical knowledge until recently made a trip to the infirmary a soldiers worst nightmare. Florence Nightingale and later, Clara Barton, changed that by demanding that the soldiers get decent care at army medical facilities. Their efforts paved the way for the ultra-modern, first class military trauma units of today.

This negligent attitude carried over into how armies have supplied the troops as well. In Normandy, when it became clear that the half tracks we were using were poorly armored (.50 caliber rounds could easily penetrate its thin skin), the army was terribly slow in solving the problem. And in an eerie echo of Iraq, our men scrounged and scavenged pieces of metal to reinforce the half track’s armor for more protection. (HT: Stephen Ambrose)

The military didn’t solve the problem then for the same reason they’re not solving it today. It’s one thing for Rumsfeld and top brass to fire off memos demanding that the job get done. It’s quite another to light a fire under the slower than molasses procurement bureaucrats whose god is procedure and who worship at the Church of Regulations.

The problem is not easily solved. Those procedures and regulations are in place to prevent corruption and graft. They generally do a good job of doing that. But the impediments they place in the way of quick action costs lives. Only a massive overhaul of the Pentagon procurement system – something that’s been promised since the early 1980’s – would solve the problem. But for all the internal studies and Congressional hearings held on the subject, nothing concrete has changed.

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld promised to reform the military when he took office in 2001. His efforts have been generally well intentioned and well received. But an organization with a budget exceeding $400 billion and nearly three quarters of a million employees cannot be “reformed” in any real sense. Rummy can move pegs on the map board and fiddle with numbers but in the end, he’s left with unarmored Humvees two years after the Iraq occupation began. And that fact is killing our soldiers.

“It is difficult to say who do you the most mischief: enemies with the worst intentions or friends with the best.” (E.R. Bulwer-Lytton