Rumsfeld’s Military Cuts Carry a High Price

The article on the disastrous experience of the April 9, 2004, military supply convoy manned largely by Halliburton truckers (“Convoy Unprepared for Last, Fatal Run,” March 26) was a superb piece of journalism.

The operation seems to have been bungled at every level. Inadequate armor on the military trucks given to civilian truckers, rendering them attractive and easy targets. Poor intelligence all around and computer foul-ups (the guy who tried to warn the convoy but inadvertently sent himself the warning -- all too easy to do).

But the greatest responsibility lies higher up. The United States has no business relying on so many civilian contractors in war zones, work for which they are not adequately trained. We are doing this because Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted on reducing the size of the military, against the advice of then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki.

This boneheaded decision to cut, rather than expand, the regular armed forces, which has led to the overuse of civilian contractors and the National Guard, most of whom signed up to serve at home and who are also not adequately trained or supplied for combat, together with the prisoner abuse scandals in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, ought to be enough to get this guy summarily cashiered.

Georgiana F. Coughlan

Gardena