Kill Them with Kindness?

WTF! I can't believe I am actually reading this! This is absolutely the craziest thing I have ever heard. Sending troops into battle without arms?
From today's NYT:

The Pentagon is planning to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year, shortening their off-duty time to meet the demands of President Bush’s buildup, Defense Department officials said Wednesday....

“We’re behind the power curve, and we can’t piddle around,” Maj. Gen. Harry M. Wyatt III, commander of the Oklahoma National Guard, said in an interview. He added that one-third of his soldiers lacked the M-4 rifles preferred by active duty soldiers and that there were also shortfalls in night vision goggles and other equipment....

Capt. Christopher Heathscott, a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard, said the 39th brigade combat team was 600 rifles short for 500 soldiers also lacked its full arsenal of mortars and howitzers.

Is this war really a Monty Python sketch and no one has told us?