Equipment takes a beating in Iraq; stockpiles thin

By Joseph L. Galloway
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The Army's Bradley fighting vehicles and M1 Abrams tanks are eating up the tracks they run on at an astounding rate in Iraq.

Humvee tires are wearing out much more quickly as well, and harsh desert conditions are taking a toll on helicopter blades and engines.

The Army's chief logistics and materiel commanders said that although they try to prepare for the worst, few saw any need for 130,000 troops in Iraq this long after the war, and no one anticipated that mines and rocket-propelled grenade attacks would require Bradley fighting vehicles to escort every convoy running from Kuwait into Iraq.

"Did we do enough? Probably not," said Gen. Paul Kern of Army Materiel Command. "Did we plan for this many people, this long? Some did; some didn't.

"The cost is in the billions. We ate up our stockpiles," Kern said at a recent Pentagon briefing.

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