The House Armed Services Committee has said only 10 percent of medium-weight transport trucks and 15 percent of heavy transport vehicles have armor. Combine this with the fact that two-thirds of U.S. casualties in combat have come because of roadside bombs, and you have the U.S. government with the blood of its soldiers on its hands.

It is a shame that it took the embarrassment of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from the pointed questioning of Spc. Thomas Wilson for this story to finally get traction.

This particular lack of support for troops by the United States is not news. Rumsfeld has been questioned about the lack of Humvee armor at least as early as September 2003 and maybe even earlier.

Rumsfeld tried to defend himself by saying, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have.” This is a cop-out, and a startlingly revealing one. The military certainly could have produced more armored vehicles. A Seattle Post-Intelligencer story points out that Humvee manufacturers are not running near capacity and had fulfilled the requests by the Pentagon for armored vehicles. The Iraq war was a war of convenience and not necessity, and Rumsfeld’s response certainly makes it clear that it knowingly sent troops into combat under-equipped.

Sadly, the funding for medium truck add-on armor kits was $0 in 2004 and 2005 funding. The same can be said of heavy truck add-on armor kits. How many times does Rumsfeld have to prove his incompetence before he is relieved of his duty? The armor scandal is another in a line of foul-ups, including the torture scandals of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the underestimation of troops and the ongoing complaints from the troops. Quick answers seem to be in line for the problems.

Troops should be provided with the equipment they need to survive. President George W. Bush should reprimand Rumsfeld if he does not have the guts to fire him. How many soldiers have to die because of executive mistakes?