WASHINGTON -- Despite Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's assertion that the military is outfitting Humvees with armor as quickly as possible, the company providing the vehicles said it has been waiting since September for approval from the Pentagon to increase monthly production by as many as 100 of the all-terrain vehicles, intended to protect against roadside bombs in Iraq.

Army officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged yesterday that they have not approved new purchase orders for armored trucks, despite the company's readiness to produce more. They said the Pentagon has been debating how many more armored Humvees are needed.

Rumsfeld, questioned by soldiers in Kuwait on Wednesday who said they have had to pick through landfills for scrap metal to boost vehicle protection, said the Army was working as quickly at it could to get armored Humvees to the front. It is "a matter of physics, not a matter of money," Rumsfeld said, adding that the Army was "breaking its neck." President Bush yesterday reiterated that "the concerns expressed are being addressed."

But executives at Armor Holdings in Jacksonville, Fla., as well as Army officials and members of Congress, said Rumsfeld's assertion that the protective equipment is being provided as quickly as possible is not true and added the company has been waiting for more purchase orders.

"We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month," Robert Mecredy, head of Armor Holdings' aerospace and defense unit, said in a statement. The company is producing about 450 armored Humvees per month, up from 50 in late 2003, when a sudden surge of attacks in Iraq exposed a lack of protective armor.

The company says that by February it could be producing as many as 550 fully armored Humvees per month -- with armor plates on the sides, front, rear, top, and bottom -- if given the go-ahead. The company estimated it would cost the military about $150 million a year to pay for the additional 100 vehicles per month.

The company said it also told the Army it could add new production lines and turn out even more vehicles.

More than half of the roughly 1,200 US soldiers who have died in Iraq have been killed by roadside bombs or in ambushes from rocket-propelled grenades. A lack of armor on thousands of older vehicles has been blamed for many of the deaths.

In an unusual public airing of grievances, Specialist Thomas Wilson, a member of the 278th Regimental Combat Team of the Tennessee National Guard, took Rumsfeld to task Wednesday at a meeting at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, where his unit is preparing to deploy to Iraq.

"We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north," he told the Pentagon chief.

Rumsfeld told the troops the Army was doing all it could to get armor protection to the front, but was quickly criticized as sounding callous for telling them, "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want."

In an e-mail circulated yesterday, Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts, who is embedded with the 278th, boasted to colleagues that he had collaborated with the troops to formulate a series of tough questions for the Pentagon chief.

The Pentagon expressed regret that some soldiers, including Wilson, were apparently provided questions beforehand. "Town Hall meetings are intended for soldiers to have dialogue with the Secretary of Defense," Rumsfeld's spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said in a statement. "It would be unfortunate to discover that anyone might have interfered with that opportunity, whatever the intention."

Nevertheless, Bush yesterday agreed that the soldiers' concerns were legitimate. "If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country, I'd want to ask the secretary of defense the same question, and that is, are we getting the best we can get us?" Bush told reporters in the Oval Office.

The Army maintained yesterday that it has undertaken a program to provide troops in Iraq with armored transportation since August 2003, when it became apparent that the quick victory in toppling Saddam Hussein was turning into a guerrilla war with frequent ambushes. The Third Army commander said the Pentagon first shipped all its armored Humvees, usually reserved for military police units, from bases around the world to Iraq before beginning to produce 50 armored Humvees per month.

The numbers increased over time to 450 per month, but there were periodic delays in upping production as the Pentagon kept reassessing its needs.

Yesterday, the Pentagon was clearly on the defensive. Lieutenant General R. Steven Whitcomb, commander of the Third Army, said in a video briefing from Kuwait that commanders are not sending any more wheeled vehicles to Iraq without armor protection for their Humvees or trucks.

Of the 30,000 estimated wheeled vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan, about 8,000 of the older models do not have armor protection. Of those that are protected, about 6,000 have full protection, while about 10,000 vehicles have received "add-on kits" providing front, rear, and side protection, but not top and bottom.

At the same time, 4,500 vehicles have received what Whitcomb called a "stopgap" measure, taking locally manufactured steel plates and bolting or welding them on the vehicles.

"We accept our responsibility to get our troops the best protection that we can," Whitcomb said.

The Army's Tank-Automotive Command in Warren, Mich., which purchases Humvees and trucks for all the military services, said many more fully-protected vehicles are needed. The military needs 8,105 so-called "up- armored" Humvees such as those being outfitted by Armor Holdings. Currently, there are about 5,900 up-armored Humvees in Iraq. As for those with "add-on kits," 13,872 Humvees in Iraq are needed, but only 9,100 have received the kits.

Pentagon spokesman Don Jarosz said he could not immediately explain why more orders have not been placed for the fully armored Humvees. But defense officials who asked not to be identified blamed bureaucratic delays in determining how many orders should be placed.

Representative Marty Meehan of Lowell and Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, Democratic members of the armed services committees, said yesterday they have talked repeatedly with Armor Holdings and informed the Pentagon as long ago as April that top officials were mistaken about how many Humvees with the best armor protection could be produced.

"That's just not true," Bayh told reporters in a teleconference, referring to Pentagon assertions that it is moving as quickly as possible.

Bayh, who raised the issue of production capacity with Rumsfeld in an Oct. 6 letter, said he could not explain whether the failure to increase production was due to "bureaucratic ineptitude" or simply "general denial" about the magnitude of the need.

Meehan said of Armor Holdings: "They have never been at full production. They haven't received an order from the Pentagon despite telling them they can do that. They told them in September. Rumsfeld claiming that there is a production limit is not true. There is production capacity that isn't being used."

Michael Fox, a spokesman for Armor Holdings, said the company is simply waiting for the Pentagon to say how many it needs: "We have always said, 'Tell us how much you want, and we'll build them.' "

Brian Hart, whose son John, a Bedford native, was killed when his unarmored Humvee ran over a roadside bomb in Iraq in October 2003, said the failure to produce armored Humvees and trucks at maximum capacity is emblematic of the administration's broader failure to fully face reality in Iraq.

"We are the largest economy in the world," he said yesterday. "It is inconceivable we can only get a few hundred vehicles out the door in a month."

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