On the U.S. ammo crisis.

• Author: Goure, Daniel
• Position: LETTERS - Letter to the Editor

The rapid depletion of the military's stocks of small-caliber ammunition is not a potential ammunition crisis, as Joe Pappalardo's article suggests ('Pentagon Takes Steps to Avert Ammunition Crisis,' July 2005), but rather a crisis in the industry. The lack of investment in small-caliber munitions and the industrial base that produced it was a well-known scandal for years. The United States has but one facility at which to produce small-caliber ammunition, Lake City, Mo. Groups such as the Munitions Industrial Base Task Force had warned for years of the potential consequences of a lack of investment in the ammunition industrial base.

The decision to expand small-caliber ammunition production by pursuing a second source contractor does not address the industrial base issues. As the article notes, the contractor in question will "partner with domestic and international companies." In effect, the Pentagon wants to use someone else's industrial base. While there are reasons to create a second source for ammunition, this effort should not come at the...