Quotes of the Morning: Last Friday

“Remember all of.. well.. last week, when Rummy told the troops that we were getting them armor as fast as we can, but that it really didn’t matter much, since they could still get blown up? Guess what.. He lied. Not about the getting blown up part. That much is unfortunately true. No, the bit about getting them the armor was the bovine-waste material involved.”
-Skippy

“Armor Holdings Inc., the sole supplier of protective plates for the Humvee military vehicles used in Iraq, said it could increase output by as much as 22 percent per month with no investment and is awaiting an order from the Army.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday the Army was working as fast as it can and supply is dictated by ‘a matter of physics, not a matter of money.’
Jacksonville, Florida-based Armor Holdings last month told the Army it could add armor to as many as 550 of the trucks a month, up from 450 vehicles now, Robert Mecredy, president of the company's aerospace and defense group said in a telephone interview today.
‘We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month,’ Mecredy said in the interview. ‘I've told the customer that and I stand ready to do that.’''
-Bloomberg News Service, December 9, 2004

“Production of the armor needs to be coordinated with output of the actual trucks by AM General LLC of South Bend, Indiana, Mecredy said. AM General spokesman Lee Woodward also said that truck output could also be increased.
‘If they ordered more trucks, we'd build more trucks,’ Woodward said. ‘We're not close to capacity. It might take some time to ramp up but we can do it.’''
-Bloomberg News Service, December 9, 2004

“Rummy probably just made a little mistake. It wouldn’t be like this administration to deliberately lie to people, especially not about anything as important as the war.”
-Skippy

“A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after he refused.
The operative, who remains under cover, asserts in a lawsuit made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 ‘that CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma.’"
-Washington Post, December 9, 2004

“I’m sure that this will be all over the news.”
-Skippy

“Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation's largest radio station operator, has picked Fox News Radio to be the primary source of national news for most of its news and talk stations, officials announced Monday. The five-year agreement initially covers more than 100 radio stations.”
-Associated Press, December 6, 2004