CONGRESS: NO ISRAELI BULLETS

Here’s the sit­u­a­tion: the U.S. Army is short on bul­lets. And only two com­pa­nies can sup­ply ‘em. One’s in East Alton, Illinois. The other’s in Israel.
That’s a prob­lem, American law­mak­ers say. The Army, back in December, inked a $70 mil­lion deal with Israel Military Industries Ltd. for small-​​caliber ammu­ni­tion. But some con­gress­men don’t like the sym­bol­ism of G.I.s fir­ing Israeli bul­lets at Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan. So they’re telling the Pentagon: “by no means, under any cir­cum­stances should a round (from Israel) be uti­lized,” accord­ing to Reuters. If the bul­lets have to be used, do it only in train­ing, not on the bat­tle­field.
The Army has enough small-​​caliber ammo for now, notes Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, the Army’s assis­tant deputy chief of staff. But ongo­ing con­flicts in Iraq and in Afghanistan have stretched ammunition-​​making facil­i­ties thin.
“To fight a major com­bat oper­a­tion in another the­ater will require the Army to impose restric­tions on train­ing expen­di­tures and to focus cur­rent inven­tory and new pro­duc­tion on com­bat oper­a­tions,” Blount reports.
In English, that means, “If shoot­ing starts some­where else in the world — or if Iraq gets much hot­ter — you’re gonna see Israeli bul­lets fly.”

June 28th, 2004 | Ammo and Munitions | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.