The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that 70 percent of the cocaine that ends up in the United States passes through Central America. The armor kits will be produced in the United States, the Army representative said, and installed in Kuwait. Mr. Vielman said the authorities worry that Guatemala will go from being a transit country for drugs to being another place where coca is grown. An Army representative, who didn't want to be identified, said Monday that $84 million was being spent to add armor to 734 M113/A3s and M577s. 1st Class Randall Shughart, members of the Army's secret Delta Force who died protecting the crew of a downed Black Hawk helicopter. Mr. Vielman said the traffickers have enlisted the land invaders "as a buffer to maintain the areas clear." In exchange, the traffickers provide the community with electric generators and cars to transport them to the nearest health clinic, said the task force leader in charge of eliminating the airstrips, who identified himself only as Col. Operation Defensive Shield, April 2002: IDF M113A3s leading the way into enemy urban areas---4 decades after its creation, the design of the light tracked M113 is far superior to rubber-tired armored cars, would you want to send a force rolling on rubber deep into hostile lands surrounded by enemies in all directions?
At 1320 the aircraft took off (Heading in different directions to fool potential spies) and headed south at low levels to avoid radar detection by Russian ships and Egyptian Radar. It took a while to get it cranked up, but when it was cranked up, it was devastating. The level of armor on Army and marine vehicles has been a contentious issue since October 2003 but took center stage in December when a reserve Soldier challenged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about it in Kuwait. But the military has to contend with antiquated equipment -- the tanks are M-113s from the mid-1970s -- as well as farmers who seem in some cases to be allied with the drug traffickers. According to Soldiers who were in the battle, Smith fired for nearly 10 minutes, squeezing off as many as 500 rounds. More than 80,000 M113s in 28 configurations have been manufactured since they were introduced in 1960, and they still do yeoman duty in many of the world's armies. SFC Smith died because the Army did not supply a GUNSHIELD to the top of his M113 Gavin tracked armored fighting vehicle (TAFV) despite us knowing from the 1963 Vietnam Battle of Ap Bac that they are needed and then they have been available for years!
Ellis says. But critics say the Army is overlooking an even cheaper, faster solution than the $3.3 million Stryker, the thousands of Vietnam era M-113 Gavin personnel carriers the Army has in storage which can be upgraded with new armor for less than $100,000 apiece. But the onslaught against the airstrips appears to be working. It is too risky to fly the plane back, so it is set on fire to destroy evidence -- a small price to pay against the millions of dollars made with each shipment. An NVA Division scored 10% against our BN in 20 days. Rumsfeld recently told a Tennessee National Guard Soldier, who asked why his outfit had to scavenge dumps in Kuwait for scraps of armor for their Humvees, that "you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might like to have." One serving officer, who asked not to be identified, said Rumsfeld "didn't even let us go to war with the Army we had; he made us leave half our armored vehicles at home in pursuit of lighter, faster and cheaper." Central America: M113 Gavins to the rescue yet again: versus jungle drug runner airstrips 1. Notice that drug runners can employ fixed-wing airplanes to "resupply" themselves landing them in airstrips cut from the jungle---so can we if we had our own fixed-wing STOL grasshoppers.
DOBBS: Well, for the sake of our men and women in uniform in Iraq, let's hope very quickly. GRANGE: Well, Lou, I know the leadership of the Army and I don't think they are in a peacetime mind-set. I don't know what they would do with the one in the picture. We are just LAZY and don't want to do what it takes to win in the U.S. military. Members of Mat'kal now new exactly how many terrorists there were and what they were armed with; a pregnant hostage who had been released had been debriefed and had given Israeli intelligence the information. DOBBS: General Grange, you are talking about what was popularly known as the APC, the armored personnel carrier, thousands of them, Jamie McIntyre reported, in storage and ready to be rearmored if necessary. Brigadier General Dan Shomron, who would ultimately command the raid, decided to go with Netanyahu's recommendation.
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