"You go to war with the Army you have."
The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, thinks it's fine and normal that a specialist in the National Guard stationed in the Middle East should have to scavenge scrap metal with which to armor his Humvee.
No, you fucking asshole. No. You apparently see no need to beef up the armor on the Humvees, or even give some soldiers body armor that fits AT ALL, but you DO NOT FUCKING JUST GO INTO WAR WITHOUT PLANNING AHEAD AND ORDERING MORE EQUIPMENT. YOU FUCKING ASS. Furthermore, you don't go around insulting the National Guardsmen and -women (who not only have longer deployments than the regular Army, but don't get nearly the same supplies) who are making this war/occupation even remotely possible in the absence of a genuine coalition. YOU DO NOT PISS ON THE PEOPLE WHO ARE MAKING YOUR WAR FEASIBLE.
At least The New York Times called him on it. An excerpt:
"You go to war with the Army you have," Mr. Rumsfeld fumed, "not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." He may have forgotten that the timetable for invading Iraq was dictated by politics, not military necessity. The armor shortage was also an outgrowth of his zeal to prove that a country can be invaded and occupied by a small and lightly armed force. A spokesman for the questioner's unit told reporters that 95 percent of its 300 trucks were not sufficiently armored.
[....] Mr. Rumsfeld talks a lot about supporting the troops. We wish that someone powerful would explain to him that doing so includes treating them with respect and telling them the truth.
WORD. Just--motherfucking WORD. To go in front of the troops (who, by the way, received a pay cut last year) and tell them to be patient when you've had more than TWO FUCKING YEARS to consider all these logistics...the sheer arrogance of this just makes me so. Fucking. ANGRY.