WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, alarmed by recent increases in military accidents, is challenging service chiefs to reduce by one-half the number of problems over the next two years.
"World-class organizations do not tolerate preventable accidents," Rumsfeld wrote the secretaries of the military departments. "Our accident rates have increased recently, and we need to turn this situation around."
The directive came in a May 19 memo, the same day that four Marines died after their helicopter plunged into a canal in Iraq, and a fifth drowned trying to save them.
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Five days earlier, a Marine died after getting trapped in an exploding munitions bunker, and an Army vehicle overturned, killing the soldier who was driving.