Knights In Shining Armor.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Defense: A poll of active-duty U.S. military personnel shows strong support for the way the Iraq war is being handled. They know the truth the media don't report.

It's a journalistic truism that the charge often winds up on Page 1 and the exoneration between the obituaries and the grocery coupons. Such is the case with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, pilloried for his statement that you go to the war with the Army you have and for allegedly sending troops with insufficiently armored vehicles into harm's way.

As it turns out, the Army we have was and is in better shape than that planted question from a National Guardsman to Rumsfeld when he visited troops in Iraq would indicate. Soldiers in the field, moreover, are quite happy with the way the war is being waged.

A recent poll conducted by the Military Times Media Group found that 63% of active duty personnel approve of way President Bush is handling the war, with 60% convinced the war is worth fighting. Those figures are higher than among Americans at large, whose only knowledge of the war comes from a biased press.

An Army Times report on the survey notes: "Support for the war is even greater among those who served longest in the combat zone: Two-thirds of combat vets say the war is worth fighting."

If those on the ground were as ill-equipped and ill-managed as press reports would indicate, we wouldn't expect to find job satisfaction in the military at 87%, according to the poll, or 83% saying it is somewhat likely or very likely we will succeed.

The soldier who asked Rumsfeld the question about the alleged lack of properly armored vehicles, a question planted ...