Remember those Uparmored Hummers?

Decisions taken in haste can cause real problems.

DAYTON, Ohio, June 11 — Thousands of pounds of armor added to military Humvees in Iraq have made the vehicles more likely to roll over and kill or injure soldiers, a newspaper reported.

“I believe the up-armoring has caused more deaths than it has saved,” Scott Badenoch, a former Delphi Corp. vehicle dynamics expert, told the Dayton Daily News for its Sunday editions.

As reported later in the article, 70 percent of soldiers killed in traffic accidents died when their uparmored Hummer rolled over.

I distinctly remember the clamor to uparmor these Hummers, with critics of the administration charging the President with not providing our soldiers with the safest equipment. I suppose that charge if fair to make in the other direction now. I doubt you’ll see it made mostly because the Administration seems a lot more interested in killing terrorists and standing up a strong and stable Iraqi government than scoring political points.

One thing I don’t remember much of at all is any serious consideration about whether all the new armor would actually affect the performance of the Hummer. There was plenty of running aorund and shouting but very little reason and thought. Now, it seems, that the idea wasn’t such a good one. Who would have guessed, huh?

One can criticize the President for many things in iraq, but being cavalier with the lives of our soldiers is not one of them.