Humvees

Yesterday, I wrote in my post about a reporter planting the now famous armored vehicle question at Sec. Rumsfeld's Kuwait press conference, and noted that the military is probably already fully engaged in increasing production of armored Humvees.

Today's LA Times reports (here) that, in fact, DOD might have been dragging its feet, reporting that AM General was only given authority to increase production after a media storm raged following the Kuwait press conference. If true, it's another piece of evidence that planning for the post-invasion part of the Iraq campaign could certainly have been better.

But I wonder how true the LA Times' allegation is. While the Times article stated that additional production capacity was available and made it seem like the entire matter was a case of Pentagon and administration bungling, it included this passage:

AM General may hire more employees to meet the demand, or could reduce its commitment to the other military branches in order to meet the Army's demands, said Lee Woodward, the spokesman. "I'm not sure yet how it will get done," Woodward said. "They're kind of scrambling around today."

If AM General needed to get permission to suspend production on other military contracts to free up capacity, it means capacity was not available.