"Everybody's getting two JSLISTs [NBC protective suits]," says Army spokesman Captain Benjamin Kuykendall. "We've got 1.4 million on hand, enough for two suits for each troop — they last 45 days — and we're cranking out 90,000 more a month."

But in October, the General Accounting Office said these weren't enough and that the old suits they were to replace were already expiring. In any case, Pentagon policy is that each soldier is supposed to have four suits, not two, and — to repeat — the suits last less than a day under concentrated attack, not 45. Congressional investigators estimate 3 million JSLIST suits will be needed in the Gulf.

Nearly 700,000 Americans served in Desert Storm. Only 148 of them died in combat, a quarter by "friendly fire." But postwar casualties tell a much more troubling story: Since 1991, more than 160,000 Gulf War vets have fallen ill — many of them now permanently disabled. Eleven thousand have died — a much higher death rate than soldiers who didn't serve in the Gulf.

I keep hearing the anti-war protesters chant, "No blood for oil! No blood for oil!" But what they never seem to say is exactly how much oil we're talking about. Don't you think that's pertinent information? Are we talking a gallon of oil for every 10 gallons of blood? Or is it more like 30 gallons of oil for every pint of blood? Because if it's the latter, maybe a blood-oil exchange would be a good idea.