Did Obama Exaggerate Army Captain's Story
BLITZER: No sooner did he say it in last night's presidential debate then blogs began attacking it - Barack Obama's anecdote about a U.S. army captain's deployment to Afghanistan without enough troops, training and weapons. We asked our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, to check the facts -- Jamie.</s>JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the question is did Barack Obama correctly characterize what an army captain said? And is it accurate? And does it support his argument that the invasion of Iraq took resources from the war in Afghanistan? So, CNN got in touch with the army captain in question with help from the Obama campaign. He requested anonymity because he's still on active duty. But the short answer is Barack Obama got the gist of the anecdote right, although he missed some important nuance. But let's start with what Obama said in last night's CNN Democratic debate.</s>OBAMA: I 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.</s>MCINTYRE: OK, here's what the captain said. "Fifteen soldiers with not sent as a group to Iraq." He said, "We lost 15 through normal reassignment and they were not replaced. Many of those 15 ended up in units going to Iraq, but I can't say all 15 were there." All of this happened five years ago in the spring and summer of 2003 during the lead up to and the invasion of Iraq. The captain was a first lieutenant then and his rifle company from Fort Drum, New York was sent to eastern Afghanistan. OK, back to Barack Obama.</s>OBAMA: As a consequence they didn't have enough ammunition. They didn't have enough Humvees.</s>MCINTYRE: It's true, the captain said. "There were no Humvees with" at Fort Drum and "not sufficient ammunition" for training before they left. So he said they had to go do that after they got to Afghanistan and they only had three days to get up to speed.</s>OBAMA: 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.</s>MCINTYRE: With the soldiers scrounging for weapons? Well, not exactly. "The issue wasn't that we didn't have weapons. The issue was we couldn't get parts for the weapons, as they broke," the soldier told us. So when the unit's 50-caliber machine gun broke down, he said, quote, "from the large stockpile of weapons we captured over the long tour, we took the best functioning Taliban weapons we could use and mounted that on our 50 cal." Interesting side light. When then top commander General John Abizaid visited his front line fire base, the soldier replaced the Russian machine gun with a broken American one just for show. Now the officer is still in the army and his final comment to us was, "It made me pretty angry at the time and I'm still pretty bitter about it." So while it's true, this unit didn't have all the troops, training and equipment this commander wanted, and that may indeed have been a result of the demands of the Iraq war, the unit was not split up and they weren't scrounging for weapons -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right Jamie McIntyre, doing an excellent fact check for us. Thanks, Jamie McIntyre, our senior Pentagon correspondent. There's going to be either an African-American or a woman on the top of the Democratic presidential ticket. But what about on the Republican side? The secretary of state has been talking to our Zain Verjee about possibly getting the nation's second highest office. What does she think about that? Zain asked Condoleezza Rice if she wanted to be a vice presidential running mate. Stick around, you'll get the answer right here in THE SITUATION ROOM.