Mine Resistant
Just when you think the poor planning and bad management that
have characterized the Iraq war couldn't get any worse, a new outrage emerges.
On Monday, USA TODAY reported that the Pentagon has known for years that
vehicles called MRAPs could keep U.S. troops safer from most roadside bombs, but
until recently it did little to deploy the vehicles to Iraq, even as hundreds of
Americans died.
The Pentagon has numerous explanations for this. Planners didn't think the war
would last this long. MRAPs are more expensive than armored Humvees. Adding
armor to Humvees seemed like a quicker, better solution.
Not one of these excuses holds water.
Consider this history: MRAPs — Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles — were
developed in the 1970s in Rhodesia and South Africa, where their high ground
clearance and V-shaped underbodies helped deflect bomb blasts to keep troops
inside alive. The Pentagon tested them in 2000 and even bought some for
explosives-disposal units.
But when officials began planning for an invasion of Iraq, they failed to
prepare for a grinding insurgency in which U.S. troops patrolling post-Saddam
Iraq in lightly armed Humvees would become easy targets for insurgents.
Not long after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, however, that's exactly what
happened. Insurgents attacked Humvees with guns, rocket-propelled grenades and,
deadliest of all, roadside bombs cobbled together from the enormous supply of
Iraqi artillery shells and other explosives left unsecured by over-stretched
U.S. forces.
Even the armored Humvees the Pentagon belatedly deployed proved to be imperfect
protection against roadside bombs. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have
become the biggest killer of U.S. troops, responsible for 55% of all combat
deaths.
All along, though, the USA TODAY story pointed out, the Pentagon knew it had a
much safer option than the Humvees. Experience has shown that the high-riding
MRAPs can deflect the force of blasts that destroy Humvees, which have flat
undersides that sit much closer to the ground and absorb blast forces.
The Defense Department could have launched a crash program as early as 2004 to
build MRAPs and ship them to Iraq. It did not. Infuriatingly, officials approved
construction of some MRAPs for Iraqi forces, while insisting that U.S. troops
stick with armored Humvees. When Marines made an urgent request for 1,169 MRAPs
in February 2005, the answer was to wait for development of a new combat vehicle
— in 2012.
These decisions cry out for further investigation and accountability. They might
be explained by bureaucratic inertia, in which case the Pentagon has a massive
problem that threatens troop safety in other ways. But there is another factor.
Then-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously fought any plan that conflicted
with his vision of a lighter, faster military. The heavy, slow, expensive MRAPs
would not have conformed to that vision. Nor would a huge order for MRAPs have
been consistent with the administration's insistence at the time that the
insurgency was entering its last throes.
Rumsfeld wouldn't comment for Monday's story. But perhaps it's no coincidence
that the month after the Pentagon chief was forced out of his job in November
2006, the Joint Chiefs of Staff suddenly reversed course and approved
construction of 4,060 MRAPs. Rumsfeld's successor, Robert Gates, has become a
strong booster of MRAPs.
It has become routine to criticize the Bush administration for bad planning,
denial and a lack of imagination in failing to anticipate the difficulty of the
Iraq mission. That certainly applies here. When President Bush told troops'
families in December 2004 that "we're doing everything we possibly can to
protect your loved ones," it simply wasn't true.
It's also infuriating to learn how sluggishly the Pentagon bureaucracy responded
when unforeseen threats emerged — and when American troops began dying by the
hundreds. If generals in charge of safeguarding U.S. troops couldn't grasp that
they had a potential solution to a terrible problem, there's something woefully
wrong with the Pentagon culture.
At this point, however, saving lives is more important than playing the
Washington blame game. The MRAPs that have been deployed to Iraq have been
enormously effective. In dangerous Anbar province, Marine explosives-disposal
units using MRAPs have suffered more than 300 bomb attacks. Not a single Marine
has died in them.
Gates, to his credit, has promised to get MRAPs to Iraq "as best we can" and has
publicly prodded contractors to hurry because "lives are at stake." That sense
of urgency is overdue, and welcome. But it's of little consolation to the
families of hundreds of U.S. troops who might still be alive had Gates'
predecessor and the generals who helped plan the war shown the same concern.
The Defense Department declined to provide an opposing view to this editorial
