Corps disputes charge of MRAP foot dragging [Archive] - Marine Corps

thedrifter

05-24-07, 07:27 PM

Biden calls for probe of Corps’ MRAP response
By Kimberly Johnson - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 24, 2007 18:56:10 EDT

A senator has called for an investigation into what he calls the Corps’ belated response to an urgent request from the field for blast-proof vehicles in Iraq.

Recent media reports have prompted Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., to publicly call on the Bush administration to make the production of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles a top priority. He is also calling for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, along with the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, to probe the issue.

In an open letter to President Bush, Biden urged the administration to publicly make MRAP production a national priority and asked the Pentagon to detail its production needs. “[P]lease let Congress know if there is any new authority you need to speed production,” he said.

“We were told that Marine Corps commanders in Iraq made the first request for mine resistant vehicles on May 21, 2006, for 185 vehicles,” Biden said in a statement released Wednesday. “Now we learn that Marines on the ground in Iraq made an urgent request to their commanders for 1,169 mine resistant vehicles as early as February 2005 — but nothing happened.”

The Corps, however, has countered the accusations and says it did not drag its feet in its search for the blast-proof vehicles. The service was initially constrained by industry’s ability to build them, Corps acquisition officials said Wednesday.

In February 2005, then-Brig. Gen. Dennis Hejlik was deployed in Iraq as the deputy commander of I Marine Expeditionary Force when he signed off on the urgent request.

“Without MRAP, personnel loss rates are likely to continue at their current rate. Continued casualty accumulation exhibits potential to jeopardize mission success,” the statement said. “MRAP vehicles will protect Marines, reduce casualties, increase mobility and enhance mission success.”

When the request was written, however, “MRAP was a generic term,” and the request did not point to a specific vehicle, Hejlik said Wednesday.

Marines in Anbar province faced a different insurgent threat in 2005 than they do today, he said. “We were taking the insurgents more head-on, obviously, than they are today,” he said. Marines faced different types of roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, he explained.

In response to Hejlik’s urgent request, then-Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee decided to make the factory up-armored M1114 Humvee the “gold standard” because it was the best readily available protection against roadside attacks, said Brig Gen. Robert Milstead, director of public affairs for the Marine Corps.

“It wasn’t until mid-2006 that we started seeing the vast number of under-the-belly shots,” he said.

M1114 Humvees were already in production for the Army and could be sent to Iraq quickly, said Thomas Miller, who was the initial program manager for MRAP at Marine Corps Systems Command at Quantico, Va.

MRAPs were not available for rapid fielding, and the sole producer of the vehicles at the time, Force Protection, was making about five a month. “All of the other vehicles that are in MRAP candidates today were, in a lot of cases, not in existence,” Miller said. “That was the best decision at the time given the capabilities available to the Marine Corps.

“It wasn’t like where they could turn a switch as we are trying to do today and say ‘start producing several hundreds, if not thousands of these a month,’ ” Miller added.

The Corps wants to purchase 3,700 MRAPs, and eight companies are currently under contract to produce them.

Gates made the vehicle the Pentagon’s top acquisition priority earlier this month.

Ellie