Investment decisions haunting Army today.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Defense Watch

The oversimplified explanation of why the U.S. Army did not have enough bulletproof vests and armored trucks for troops in Iraq is that suppliers could not keep up with the demand.

The reality, however, is far more complicated.

Many people find it difficult to understand how it is possible that the world's most powerful and technologically advanced army was caught off guard, lacking enough of the equipment that has become essential for soldiers and Marines to survive in Iraq, such as bullet-resistant body armor, up-armored Humvees, and anti-missile systems for helicopters.

It would be fair to contend that the Army is not entirely to blame, because its preparations for the conflict were based on flawed Pentagon assumptions that grossly underestimated the degree of violence and insurgency in the post-Saddam phase of the war.

But the Army does bear responsibility for a procurement system that would make it difficult for even the most skilled bureaucrats and shrewdest military planners to get equipment fielded fast. The service also is paying the price for a risky gamble--when it decided a decade ago that it could afford to stop spending on "conventional" weapons and equipment such as armor, because there was no major war on the horizon.

As one Army general put it, the equipment shortages seen today directly result from deliberate budgeting decisions made in peacetime. In the mid-1990s, service leaders saw a window of opportunity to begin a "transformation" into a more lethal and lighter force that traded off armor in favor of computer networks and information technology. In a transformed army, armor was an undesirable commodity that weighed down the force. Budgets for helicopter defenses were zeroed out, because the Army projected that the futuristic and now-defunct Comanche helicopter would be so stealthy that no enemy missiles or rockets would detect it.

The numbers tell a stunning story. Before the Iraqi conflict, the Army's budget for Interceptor body armor would have purchased enough bulletproof vests to equip the entire force during a 48-year period. An armored security vehicle intended for military police was budgeted as a 60-year procurement. The up-armored Humvee was to serve only as a niche vehicle for small peacekeeping units.

"It was the way we did business," said Brig. Gen. Charles W. Fletcher, Army assistant deputy chief of staff for logistics. "We accepted risk in just about everything, because we were building the future...