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Wolfowitz Gets an Upfront Message

Feb- 2-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

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By THOM SHANKER

Published: February 2, 2004

KIRKUK, Iraq, Feb. 2 — Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, on a mission to highlight successes in the new Iraq, heard first-hand today of the ethnic and religious tensions that are vastly complicating American efforts for an orderly return of sovereignty to a new government in Baghdad by July 1...

Earlier today, Mr. Wolfowitz went on patrol in Mosul with troops driving the Army's newest fighting vehicle, called the Stryker, a lightly armored, wheeled infantry transport. Critics have said the Stryker's armor, built to withstand a 14.5-millimeter round, may be unable to stand up to even the low-intensity guerrilla threat in Iraq...

One Stryker received the ultimate test even as Mr. Wolfowitz was touring Mosul, when it was it was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade on the other side of the city in an ambush that senior officers said had nothing to do with the deputy defense secretary's visit.

Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the incoming commander of coalition forces in northern Iraq, said that, as designed, the slat armor forced the grenade to detonate 18 inches away from the Stryker's skin, diffusing the blast. None of the troops inside the vehicle were injured, he said, and the Stryker itself sustained only minor damage and continued its patrol.


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