How is it that you, a retired soldier in suburban Connecticut, appear to have a better take on the soldiers' mood than the generals in the Pentagon or in Baghdad?

I have incredible sources -- on average I get 500 e-mails a day from kids around the world that have read my work and know that I am not going to blow the whistle on them; a lot of that shit you see on my Web site comes from those kids.

This is the first war with e-mail. You have asked U.S. soldiers to emulate Winston Churchill and act as war correspondents by sending you dispatches from the front. What has been the response?

Very, very favorable. The soldiers know the traffic is being monitored by the Pentagon, that Big Brother is monitoring everything they write. But still my sources keep coming from Afghanistan and Iraq. I very seldom get direct sources -- remember before we deployed, they [soldiers] were at home and could send e-mail from personal Yahoo accounts, now they have to use military accounts and are paranoid that these are being read. The [direct] traffic I get now are from guys who don't give a fuck, who are not going to stay in [the military], who don't give a shit about the consequences of sounding off. But remember -- you can never outsmart a convict in prison or a soldier on the battlefield. They both live by their wits, so what they do is write home and say "Hey dad I love you, we are having a few problems with tanks, etc. If this letter should happen to find itself into the e-mail of Hackworth at www.Hackworth.com it wouldn't disappoint me." I am getting 30 to 40 of these letters.

American troops in Iraq are complaining of basics like clean clothes, hot food and mail from home. Is there anything wrong with the Pentagon's famous supply chain?

This goes back to the shitty estimate on the part of Rumsfeld. He did not provide enough troops or the logistical backup, because his Army was not staying, it was coming home. So who needs a warehouse full of shit?

One letter I got today, written by a sergeant in a tank unit, said that of its 18 armored vehicles -- Bradley or Abrams -- only four are operational. The rest were down because of burned-out transmissions or the tracks eaten out. So it is not just the shitty food and bad water -- a soldier can live with short rations -- but spare parts, baby! If you don't have them, your weapons don't work. Most of the resupply is by wheeled vehicles, and the roads and terrain out there is gobbling up tires like you won't believe. Michelin's whole production for civilians has been stopped [at certain plants] and have dedicated their entire production to the U.S. military in Iraq -- and they can't keep up!

Do you think there is any truth to the sense that British soldiers are better at nation-building than the Americans?

I would say so. They have a long history -- going back to the days of the colonies. If you look at their achievements in some places where they have established solid governments -- in Africa, in India, they have done a very good job. They were very good at lining up local folks to do the job like operating the sewers and turning on the electricity. Far better than us -- we are heavy-handed, and in Iraq we don't understand the people and the culture. Thus we did not immediately employ locals in police and military activities to get them to build and stabilize their nation. (Pauses) Yeah, the Brits are better.

What would you tell Rumsfeld if you could talk to him?

In mid April, I wrote a piece that asks for Rumsfeld to be fired, to be relieved. I took enormous heat for that. He went in light, on the cheap, he has misunderstood the whole war, he should go ... Rumsfeld is an arrogant asshole. That's a quote, by the way.

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