Military Discovers new Armored Vehicles can't Stop Newest Bombs; Spending Billions on them Anyway

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

Two interesting stories were reported on Thursday:

1. The Marines have ordered 1,200 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles for $623 million
2. MRAPs have been found to be too weak to withstand the latest type of bombs used by insurgents

That's right - the military decided to make a bulk order of equipment it had just realized doesn’t work.

How could such a debacle happen? Here's a clue: The contract was announced by the offices of Mississippi members of Congress, including Republican Sen. Trent Lott. Mississippi just happens to be the location of the new 200,000 square-foot facility where the vehicles will be produced.

It gets worse. A Marine general filed an "urgent request" in February 2005 to supply his troops with MRAPs to guard against IEDs in the deadly Anbar province. More than two years passed before the Marine commandant "declared getting new armored vehicles his top priority," and even now the pipeline is embarrassingly slow.

As the U.S. military finally starts to adapt to the old insurgent strategy, Iraqis have started using explosively formed penetrates (EFP), which tear right through our new MRAP vehicles. The military's solution is apparently to separately purchase thousands of sets of add-on armor to patch up the new MRAPs and hope for the best.

With the billions of dollars the American military has spent on the war in Iraq, why are we still playing catch-up with our grossly outmatched opponents?

The Army is also seeking new armored vehicles (over $20 billion worth, to be exact). But even with all that money their goal is to have them all ready by as late as July 2009.

"By the time we field all the vehicles we could be on our way out of Iraq," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute. "Sadly, this vehicle will probably find plenty of uses in other places. We've shown the world how to fight our army to a standstill."

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

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