I don't start political threads often (there are plenty to go around) but this is an interesting development. Lots of stories out there, here's an excerpt part way down in one from the San Francisco Chronicle:

It is unclear whether this is the first time a sizable group of soldiers in Iraq has refused to carry out orders, and the military is playing down the mutiny as an isolated incident. But the small rebellion suggests that problems linger with outfitting soldiers with adequate equipment in an increasingly dangerous country.

"I know soldiers are deeply concerned and have been deeply concerned about the equipment shortages," said Paul Rieckhoff, a veteran of the Iraq war and executive director of Operation Truth, a New York advocacy group working to draw attention to the needs of soldiers in Iraq and returning veterans.

"When you don't have proper equipment, you feel vulnerable," Rieckhoff said. "We haven't evolved quickly enough to meet the enemy threat, which is rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs."

The incident, which was first reported in the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., where several of the soldiers live, apparently began after the company tried to deliver a shipment of fuel to a base but was turned away because the fuel was unusable, according to family members of some soldiers.

According to relatives and the Army officer, they returned to their home base in Tallil, where they were told to go to Taji to deliver the fuel. The group refused, citing the poor condition of their vehicles and the lack of an armed escort, family members said. American convoys, which are usually accompanied by armored cars and sometimes also by aircraft, are often attacked by insurgents.

"Yesterday, we refused to go on a convoy to Taji," Spc. Amber McClenny, 21, said in a message she left on the answering machine of her mother, Teresa Hill, in Dothan, Ala. "We had broken-down trucks, non-armored vehicles. We were carrying contaminated fuel."

The full story is here.

Okay, Dubya, just try to dismiss these soldiers as renegades and the conditions as atypical.

SRS