Reply #18: I suggest a ride in a humvee, not an MRAP, to Basra

[leftchick]

and if he makes it, turn around and go to Mosul. That would be divine justice.




Pentagon ignored danger of roadside bombs, report charges

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/806285.html

By DAVID GOLDSTEIN
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- The military ignored steps before the invasion of Iraq that could have prevented the staggering number of casualties from roadside bombs, the Pentagon's acting inspector general charged Tuesday.

The IG's report says that the military knew years before the war that mines and homemade bombs, which the military calls "improvised explosive devices," would be a "threat . . . in low-intensity conflicts" and that "mine-resistant vehicles" were available.

"Yet the military did not develop requirements for, fund or acquire" safer vehicles, the report says. The military invaded Iraq in 2003 "without having taken available steps to acquire technology to mitigate the known mine and IED risk to soldiers and Marines."

Even after the war was under way, as the devices began taking a deadly toll and field commanders pressed for vehicles that were better protected from roadside bombs, the Pentagon was slow to act, the report says.