Robbing Peter to Pay Paul to Protect Peter

Defensetech.org reports that the money needed to put armor on military vehicles in Iraq will be coming out of soldiers' payroll funds:

Now, the accountants could have taken money from hulking, multi-billion dollar items, like the F-22 fighter or the creaky missile defense program. But no. Instead, the cash -- along with about a billion dollars in other funds -- was taken from the Army's payroll. From the accounts to pay soldiers in the field.

With that money gone, there's now only enough cash left in the register to keep paying soldiers until May or so. If a "supplemental" budget bill -- rumored to be $75 billion or more -- isn't passed by then, there will be no paychecks for G.I.s.

Congress will never let that happen, of course. No politician in his right mind is going to keep soldiers from getting paid. So, in the end, G.I.s will get the money they've been promised.

But, still, wouldn't it have been better to get this armor money together in the first place? The war has been going on since last March. Planning for it started in 2002. And only on November 19th did the Pentagon realize it needed more money to armor up its trucks?