via Bloomberg. . .

Armor Holdings Inc., the sole supplier of protective plates for the Humvee military vehicles used in Iraq, said it could increase output by as much as 22 percent per month with no investment and is awaiting an order from the Army.

(. . .)

Jacksonville, Florida-based Armor Holdings last month told the Army it could add armor to as many as 550 of the trucks a month, up from 450 vehicles now, Robert Mecredy, president of the company's aerospace and defense group said in a telephone interview today.

(. . .)

Armor Holdings has already boosted output from 60 vehicles a month a year ago, said Mecredy, 58. As a result of the increased output, Armor Holdings has cut the price for the armor its supplies for the trucks to $58,000 per vehicle, from $72,000 per vehicle a year ago, Mecredy said.

(. . .)

Production of the armor needs to be coordinated with output of the actual trucks by AM General LLC of South Bend, Indiana, Mecredy said. AM General spokesman Lee Woodward also said that truck output could also be increased.

``If they ordered more trucks, we'd build more trucks,'' Woodward said. ``We're not close to capacity. It might take some time to ramp up but we can do it.''

Woodward declined to provide exact details on production capacity.

The main reason there isn't enough armor is because the military has underestimated its own needs, said Meghan Keck, spokeswoman for Senator Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat. Bayh wrote a letter to Rumsfeld in October calling for a more accurate estimate of Humvee needs.

``If the Army would be up front about the number of Humvees needed, the companies would be able to set their production accordingly to meet the need,'' Keck said in a phone interview.

So I'm confused, were the troops, whom I support 100%, just lied to by our Sec. of Defense and later by our administration, whom I have zero support or respect for?

Don Rumsfeld got some tough questions from (not our media they never ask tough questions in fact I suspect that they get their questions from the administration) the actual soldiers stationed in the Iraq War theater. The AP gets it out to the masses here.

For example Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team of the Tennessee Army National Guard asked Rummy:

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?"

this drew a "big cheer" from the 2k+ soldiers and put Rummy on guard. He hesitated and asked for the question again and Mr. Wilson replied:

"We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north,"

To which Rummy replied that they should make with what they get and blamed the manufacturers for the delay despite the rush to war perpetrated by the harsh neocon agenda we now call "policy". The article also hints that soldiers have been searching through land fills to find protective materials, but deputy commanding general of U.S. forces in Kuwait, Maj. Gen. Gary Speer, denied any knowledge of this.

The CIA seems to agree with the Senators (below) like Chafee who are concerned about the direction Iraq seems to be heading. Recently two people, the CIA station chief in Baghdad and a visiting senior CIA official both offered a bleak outlook for Iraq's future as presented by the NY Times.

Of course our piece of shit ambassador to Iraq, John D. Negroponte, a faithful neocon and in my opinion a criminal, quickly objected. . .

The American ambassador to Iraq, John D. Negroponte, was said by the officials to have filed a written dissent, objecting to one finding as too harsh, on the ground that the United States had made more progress than was described in combating the Iraqi insurgency. But the top American military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., also reviewed the cable and initially offered no objections, the officials said. One official said, however, that General Casey may have voiced objections in recent days.

Juan Cole offers this to Mr. Negroponte. . .

Uh, John, when you have conquered a country and ruled it for 18 months, and when you have 140,000 plus troops on the ground, and when you have to forbid your embassy staff to take the 10-mile-long road from the capital to the airport because their lives cannot be assured on it-- then, John, things are deteriorating and may not get better soon. Get used to it.

It's the time of the year for giving and one R.I. Senator has given the american people some truth about Iraq for a change. We all know this already but to hear it come out of a Republicans mouth is awesome:

Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island said the situation he encountered was "frightening at times."

"It's a very tenuous security situation," Chafee told CNN. "I'd been there a year ago -- what a change."

Chafee said the senators were unable to travel through Baghdad's neighborhoods, visit the northern city of Mosul or take the road from the airport -- all things visitors could do last year.

Chafee said that when Iraqi politicians -- such as interim President Ghazi al-Yawar, who met with President Bush on Monday in Washington -- say that the situation is improving, the effect is damaging.

"We really need cold, hard facts and honesty,"

He said insurgents "pretty much" control Mosul and large parts of Baghdad, as well as the 10-mile stretch of road from the airport into the capital.

"If with 100,000-plus troops over there, we can't control that 10-mile road, it shows what's happening politically," the senator said. "The people are not as friendly as they were a year ago towards Americans."

These are all Republican Chafees' quotes, Merry X-Mas america!

Also, almost 100% of complaints to the FCC in 2003 about "media indecency" come from the right-wing group the Parents Television Council. From Mediaweek:

What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group

Number one:

We have no idea where bin Laden is

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said yesterday that the search for Osama bin Laden has gone completely cold, with no recent intelligence indicating where he and his top lieutenants are hiding.

Number two:

Iraq war = Dangerous mistake

"I think it's less safe," Gen. Pervez Musharraf said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer." Asked whether he considered the invasion a mistake, the Pakistani leader said, "With hindsight, yes. We have landed ourselves in more trouble, yes."

My comment to the News Media, NO SHIT!!!

Like the south there about two years behind