Study: MRAP refusal led to Marine deaths

[unhappycamper]

Study: MRAP refusal led to Marine deaths
By Richard Lardner - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Feb 15, 2008 22:06:49 EST

Hundreds of Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes.

The study, written by a civilian Marine Corps official and obtained by The Associated Press, accuses the service of “gross mismanagement” that delayed deliveries of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected trucks for more than two years.

Cost was a driving factor in the decision to turn down the request for the so-called MRAPs, according to the study. Stateside authorities saw the hulking vehicles, which can cost as much as a $1 million each, as a financial threat to programs aimed at developing lighter vehicles that were years from being fielded.

After Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared the MRAP the Pentagon’s No. 1 acquisition priority in May 2007, the trucks began to be shipped to Iraq in large quantities.

The vehicles weigh as much as 40 tons and have been effective at protecting American forces from improvised explosive devices, the weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents. Only four U.S. troops have been killed by such bombs while riding in MRAPs; three of those deaths occurred in older versions of the vehicles.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_mrap_deaths_080215/

[DemReadingDU]

1. $1 million each

Whoa, that is a LOT of money!

Somebody is getting might rich building those.

And somebody says...but we want our Marines protected.

Of course, but if there wasn't that war in Iraq, the MRAPs wouldn't be needed there.

edit to add
:sarcasm: