PDA

View Full Version : Corps counters accusations of not meeting gear needs



thedrifter
05-29-07, 07:38 AM
Corps counters accusations of not meeting gear needs
Senator says service delayed vehicle buys
By Kimberly Johnson - kjohnson@militarytimes.com
Posted : June 04, 2007

Marine officials are defending their acquisition strategy for blast-proof vehicles requested by troops in Iraq, saying they pushed out the best equipment available in industry at the time.

However, defense analysts say the delay in fielding Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles was more a product of cumbersome procurement bureaucracy and the then-prevailing thought by defense planners that Iraq would not be a long-term military engagement.

Corps officials were responding to recent media reports that accused the service of waiting more than a year to address an urgent request from the field made in February 2005. The media reports prompted Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., to publicly call for an investigation into the issue and press the Bush administration to make the production of MRAPs a top priority.

“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 May 23 statement. “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.”

Meanwhile, The Associated Press quoted an internal I Marine Expeditionary Force document claiming Corps acquisition officials were “risk-averse,” and have failed to answer the vast majority of urgent requests from the field.

“Process worship cripples operating forces,” the document said. “Civilian middle management lacks technical and operational currency.”

It said less than 10 percent of more than 100 urgent requests from the field — from February 2006 to February 2007 — were met by the Corps. Marine officials had no immediate comment on the report.

Lt. Col. Brian Salas, a spokesman for I MEF, downplayed the significance of the document.

“That document is a draft working paper that was not approved by the command,” Salas said May 25. “It was seen and disapproved because it was too narrow a focus for such a complex issue,” referring to the process for requesting gear from the field.

“There’s a lot of policies � that are debated internally here,” Salas said. “We get a robust debate, different perspectives in order to come up with plans and actions � to give the commander the best advice possible.”

The paper “was one part of the debate,” he added.

As far as the MRAP, in February 2005, then-Brig. Gen. Dennis Hejlik was deployed in Iraq as the deputy commander of I MEF when he signed off on the urgent request for a new vehicle.

“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.”

The request was made for a vehicle with a V-shaped hull, transparent armor and rifle firing ports on all four sides, and 360-degree rollover protection.

When the request was written, however, “‘MRAP’ was a generic term,” and the request did not point to a specific vehicle, Hejlik, now a major general, told reporters.

While a handful of the larger V-shaped “Buffalo” vehicles had just started to emerge on the Iraq battlefield with explosive ordnance disposal teams, there was no existing MRAP vehicle design in the works that would have been suitable for patrol units, other Corps officials said.
Anbar in 2005

Marines in Anbar province faced a different insurgent threat in 2005 than they do today, Hejlik said, adding that troops faced different types of roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.

In June 2005, then-Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee signed off on buying 2,800 of the factory up-armored M1114 Humvee, then considered 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.

In the meantime, the urgent request made by Hejlik was used to help develop requirements for today’s MRAP capability currently under production, said Len Blasiol, director of the combat development division at Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va.

“The threat at the time was the side IED,” said Thomas Miller, who was the initial program manager for MRAP at Marine Corps Systems Command. “It wasn’t so much the underbody IED. It wasn’t really until May [2006] that we started to see that threat proliferate enough to really push the need for an MRAP-type vehicle.”

M1114 Humvees were already in production for the Army and could be sent to Iraq quickly, Miller said. “Because this was urgent and we had to get something over there as fast as we could, we got the best of industry at the time, while [in] the meantime, working to develop that capability,” he said.

There was little option for any other immediate response, he explained. The then-sole MRAP manufacturer, Force Protection, was making about five of the vehicles a month. “All of the other vehicles that are in MRAP candidates today were, in a lot of cases, not in existence,” he said.

The MRAP debate is not an indictment of individuals, but instead that of the procurement system as a whole, said Robert Work, defense analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“It is perhaps more emblematic of a ponderous acquisition system than anything else,” Work said.

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

Ellie