Why not go to war with the army you could have?

It is a fact that our troops went to war without adequate armor, both for themselves personally and for their vehicles. And it is a fact that Rumskull's response when asked by a soldier about this was "You go to war with the army you have."

And now there is evidence that our troops went to war without some equipment that they could have had, but, in order to protect a contract with Raytheon, our army decided not to use an Israeli system that could save the lives of our troops. The Israeli system, known as "Trophy," is a defense system against rocket propelled grenades (RPGs). It has been and is operational, but our military has refused to use it at all. Why? Well, it turns out that Raytheon has a $70 million contract to develop a similar system, and using the Israeli system might jeopardize that contract. If Raytheon's system was close to being operational, this might not be so bad. However, Rayhteon's system won't be ready until 2011.

Lisa Meyers and Adam Ciralsky of NBC News have done a series of four reports on this matter. Here are the dates and links of the reports:

• September 5, 2006
• September 6, 2006
• January 9, 2007
• January 10, 2007