thedrifter
12-13-08, 06:49 AM
SUN EDITORIAL:
Failing our troops
Report faults Marine Corps for refusal to purchase vehicles resistant to roadside bombs
Sat, Dec 13, 2008 (2:05 a.m.)
It was hardly a surprise Tuesday when the Defense Department’s inspector general released a report that criticized the Marine Corps for failing to acquire specially equipped vehicles to help protect U.S. troops from roadside bombs in Iraq. Instead, the Marines relied on insufficiently armored Humvees.
As we wrote in February, a civilian Marine Corps official estimated hundreds of troops may have been killed or wounded in roadside explosions because of the military’s failure to equip those fighters with mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPs. The new vehicle is thought to do a better job of resisting mines and explosives because it is higher off the ground than a Humvee and has an undercarriage that is better designed to deflect ground explosions.
Particularly disturbing in the latest report was the finding that the Defense Department was fully aware of the potential threat of roadside bombs before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. Yet the department “did not develop requirements for, fund or acquire MRAP-type vehicles for low-intensity conflicts that involved mines and (explosives),” the report stated. “As a result, the department entered into operations in Iraq without having taken available steps to acquire technology to mitigate the known mine and (explosive) risk to soldiers and Marines.”
Marine field commanders in Iraq cannot be blamed for this shortsightedness because, as the report stated, they submitted an urgent request in February 2005 for the new vehicles. But their request fell on deaf ears at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va. The decision to stick mostly with Humvees until they were replaced by the new vehicles last year turned out to be one of the biggest boneheaded moves of the war.
One lesson in this debacle is to avoid sending troops into battle unless they have the best equipment and armor available for the terrain and combat situations they are likely to confront. That clearly was not the case in Iraq, and officials in the Pentagon should be made to answer to Congress for this colossal lack of good judgment.
Ellie
Failing our troops
Report faults Marine Corps for refusal to purchase vehicles resistant to roadside bombs
Sat, Dec 13, 2008 (2:05 a.m.)
It was hardly a surprise Tuesday when the Defense Department’s inspector general released a report that criticized the Marine Corps for failing to acquire specially equipped vehicles to help protect U.S. troops from roadside bombs in Iraq. Instead, the Marines relied on insufficiently armored Humvees.
As we wrote in February, a civilian Marine Corps official estimated hundreds of troops may have been killed or wounded in roadside explosions because of the military’s failure to equip those fighters with mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPs. The new vehicle is thought to do a better job of resisting mines and explosives because it is higher off the ground than a Humvee and has an undercarriage that is better designed to deflect ground explosions.
Particularly disturbing in the latest report was the finding that the Defense Department was fully aware of the potential threat of roadside bombs before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. Yet the department “did not develop requirements for, fund or acquire MRAP-type vehicles for low-intensity conflicts that involved mines and (explosives),” the report stated. “As a result, the department entered into operations in Iraq without having taken available steps to acquire technology to mitigate the known mine and (explosive) risk to soldiers and Marines.”
Marine field commanders in Iraq cannot be blamed for this shortsightedness because, as the report stated, they submitted an urgent request in February 2005 for the new vehicles. But their request fell on deaf ears at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va. The decision to stick mostly with Humvees until they were replaced by the new vehicles last year turned out to be one of the biggest boneheaded moves of the war.
One lesson in this debacle is to avoid sending troops into battle unless they have the best equipment and armor available for the terrain and combat situations they are likely to confront. That clearly was not the case in Iraq, and officials in the Pentagon should be made to answer to Congress for this colossal lack of good judgment.
Ellie