In the spin room after the debate, I asked Obama advisor David Axelrod about the anecdote Michael Graham flagged below. Here’s the anecdote:
OBAMA: You know, I’ve heard from an Army captain who was the head of a
rifle platoon — supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up
being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been
sent to Iraq.
And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition,
they didn’t have enough Humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban
weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for
them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.
Axelrod didn’t shed much new light on the source of the story:
AXELROD: That was a discussion that a captain in the military had with our staff, and he asked that that be passed along to Senator Obama.
I’m sure our guys capture whatever of the Taliban’s they can get their hands on, but are they so poorly equipped that they have no choice but to fight with captured enemy weapons? Any expert opinions out there on this one?