Army wants 10,000 MRAPs

Army wants 10,000 MRAPs
By Tom Vanden Brook - USA Today
Posted : Wednesday Sep 19, 2007 6:55:05 EDT

The Army has decided to ask for 10,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles to counter the threat of makeshift bombs in Iraq, according to one of the program’s top congressional supporters.

The new request is nearly four times the 2,700 MRAPs the Army had sought. That’s still not enough, said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who was briefed on the change by the Defense Department. Biden cited a request this year for 17,770 of the vehicles for the Army by Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 military commander in Iraq.

“Until every soldier and Marine has the best protection we can give them, we must keep pushing,” Biden said.

Requests for more MRAPs may not matter because manufacturers don’t have the capacity to make them fast enough, said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House subcommittee that writes the Pentagon budget. John Young, chairman of the Defense Department’s MRAP Task Force, has said the Pentagon hopes to build 1,300 a month by December.

Army and Pentagon officials declined Tuesday to comment on the new MRAP request. So far, the Pentagon has ordered 6,500 MRAPs, valued at about $5 billion.

The cost of the Army’s new vehicles is unknown because the newest MRAPs will cost more than the current $1 million each. They will be required to have extra protection against deadly armor-piercing weapons known as explosively formed penetrators.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/09/gns_mrap_070919/


uhc comment: I understand the need to protect our troops, but the unanswered question is still there. What the fuck are we doing in Iraq?

To make bush and his cohorts in crime richer, of course.