December 6, 2003	Saturday	Shawwal 11, 1424

WASHINGTON: The US army has promised to rush new body armour to Iraq by the end of this month after it emerged that tens of thousands of soldiers were sent to the front without the life-saving protective jackets.

Parents of some of the troops have resorted to buying the jackets with their bullet-stopping ceramic inserts themselves and posting them to Iraq. The failure to equip ordinary soldiers properly has caused fury in Congress, where the shortfall in body armour has been contrasted with the generous allocations to other projects in this year’s $379 billion defence budget.

Most national guard troops and reservists deployed in Iraq have been sent with only Vietnam-era flak jackets that are much less effective in stopping shrapnel and bullets.

The army’s new Interceptor vests are lighter, and their ceramic plates can stop bullets from high-velocity assault rifles at short range, as well as bomb shrapnel.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, began agitating for more Interceptor jackets and ceramic plates to be sent to Iraq when he discovered a former student desperately trying to get some for his unit.

“I started to call body armour manufacturers, and I was shocked to find they had received hundreds of calls from parents seeking body Interceptor vests or ceramic plates for their loved ones,” Mr Turley said. “I then started calling over to the Pentagon and learned there was a significant shortage in supplying these vests.”

Congress has criticized the Pentagon for failing to order not only enough body armour for the troops but also sufficient armoured Humvee vehicles, which would protect patrols in Iraq from roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.