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Tuesday, 24 March 2009 14:01 |
| Body Armor Claim: Still False and Nasty | | The liberal group VoteVets.org is running an ad claiming that Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole "voted against giving our troops" life-saving body armor.It's a slightly revised version of an ad the same group ran against four GOP senators in the 2006 election. The claim was false and nasty then, and it's false and nasty now. To see the advertisement CLICK HERE The truth is that there was never a vote to deny body armor to troops, period. Neither of the two funding measures Vote Vets now cites in support of its claim mention body armor specifically, and neither could have resulted in the purchase of more body armor. At the time, the military was already buying every piece of body armor the economy could produce, and Pentagon officials said funding was sufficient. The ad is just as shocking and visually powerful as it was in its 2006 version. It shows the same footage of Pete Granato, an Army reservist who served in Iraq, firing several rounds from an AK-47 assault rifle into a pair of mannequins at a distance of about 50 feet. Granato then rips open the vests to show bullet holes in the abdomen of the figure wearing what he described as "the protection that we were given when we deployed to Iraq," but no bullet holes in the dummy protected by what he refers to as "modern body armor, made for today's weapons."Granato then says, "The difference is life and death," adding, "Senator Elizabeth Dole voted against giving our troops this."But that's false. There was never a vote that would have prevented troops from being equipped with the ceramic-plate vests to which Granato refers.In the original ad, VoteVets.org based its false claim on one vote against a measure that made no mention of body armor, either in the amendment itself or in the Senate debate about it. It would have provided an extra $1 billion for purchase of unspecified "equipment." This time, the ad also cites a second vote, which Dole cast against a Democratic amendment that would have shifted $322 million away from Iraqi reconstruction and applied it to "safety equipment," some of which could have gone to body armor. But that was not a vote against "giving our troops" body armor, which was already being shipped to Iraq. An appropriations bill – which Dole supported – contained an extra $300 million for possible use for body armor. The Pentagon said it had ample funds for body armor, and in fact had everyone in Iraq supplied with the vests within three months after that vote. Read more.... Source: Newsweek online with permission of factcheck |
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