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Best Way to Protect U.S. Troops

Posted on: Saturday, 16 February 2008, 09:00 CST

HUNDREDS OF U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats denied 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 $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 (pronounced M-rap) the Pentagon's No. 1 acquisition priority in May, 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.

The study's author, Franz J. Gayl, catalogs what he says were flawed decisions and missteps by midlevel managers in Marine Corps offices that occurred well before Gates succeeded Donald Rumsfeld in December 2006.

Gayl cites documents showing a February 2005 request by then- Brig. Gen. Dennis Hej-lik for 1,169 of the vehicles was shuttled to a civilian logistics official at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in suburban Washington who had little experience with military vehicles. As a result, there was more concern over how the MRAP would upset the Marine Corps' supply and maintenance chains than there was in getting the troops a truck that would keep them alive, the study contends.

An inquiry should be conducted by the Marine Corps inspector general to determine whether any military or government employees are culpable for failing to rush critical gear to the troops, recommends Gayl, who prepared the study for the Marine Corps' plans, policies and operations department.

The study was obtained by the AP from a nongovernment source.

"If the mass procurement and fielding of MRAPs had begun in 2005 in response to the known and acknowledged threats at that time, as the (Marine Corps) is doing today, hundreds of deaths and injuries could have been prevented," writes Gayl, the science and technology adviser to Lt. Gen. Richard Natonski, who heads the department.

Gayl, who filed for whistle-blower protection last year, uses official Marine Corps documents, e-mails, briefing charts, memos, congressional testimony and news articles to make his case.

He was not allowed to interview or correspond with any employees connected to the Combat Development Command. The study's cover page says the views in the study are his own.

Maj. Manuel Delarosa, a Marine Corps spokesman, called Gayl's study "predecisional staff work" and said it would be inappropriate to comment on it. Delarosa said, "It would be inaccurate to state that Lt. Gen. Natonski has seen or is even aware of" the study.

Hejlik, who is now a major general and heads Marine Corps Special Operations Command, has cast his 2005 statement as more of a recommendation than a demand for a specific system. "I don't think there was any intent by anybody to do anything but the right thing," Hej-lik said in May.

The study does not say precisely how many Marine casualties Gayl thinks occurred because of the lack of MRAPs.

More than 3,200 U.S. troops, including 824 Marines, have been killed in action in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

An additional 29,000 have been wounded, nearly 8,400 of them Marines.

Congress has provided more than $22 billion for 15,000 MRAPs the Defense Department plans to acquire.

As of May 2007, roughly 120 MRAPs were being used by troops from all the military services, Pentagon records show. Now, more than 2,150 are in the hands of personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Marines have 900 of those.

key findings

According to the report:

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A February 2005 request from a Marine Corps commander in western Iraq for nearly 1,200 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles became bogged down in bureaucracy.

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Rather than send the more expensive MRAPs, the Marine Corps decided Humvees with more armor were the best solution to beating increasingly powerful improvised explosive devices.

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The defense industry could have begun rapidly producing MRAPs if the Marine Corps had told contractors they wanted the heavy vehicles in large numbers.

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By March 2007, with IEDs causing the majority of deaths and injuries to U.S. troops in Iraq, the Marine Corps commandant made sending the MRAPs to Marines a top priority.

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The delay caused hundreds of unnecessary deaths and injuries to U.S. Marines in Iraq. the vehicles

MRAPs weigh as much as 40 tons and have been effective at protecting U.S. forces from improvised explosive devices, the weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents. They can cost as much as $1 million each.

Source: Virginian - Pilot

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