Petrelis Files

Only 500 of 7000 Mine-Proof Tanks Get
to US Troops in Iraq

(The Pentagon and the company that makes the tanks, can't deliver enough MRAPs to the troops, but on July 30, 2007, one such vehicle was made available for a photo op near the U.S. Capitol. Top photo: GOP Rep. Jack Kingston, wearing red tie but no jacket, has his photo taken by a staffer. Bottom photo: Kingston walking into the MRAP.)

How's the U.S. doing providing the troops in Iraq with the equipment necessary to fight and survive the civil war over there?

From the Stars and Stripes of November 3:

The Army is fielding the latest Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles in Iraq, giving them to units who need them most and operate in areas with the highest threat.

While the Pentagon had initially planned to have 7,000 of the vehicles in use in Iraq by summer 2008, that number has been downgraded by military officials. [...]

Uh-oh, the Department of Defense is publicly acknowledging it hasn't met the 7,000 hoped-for vehicles. So is DoD off its target by very much?

The head of the Department of Defense MRAP task force originally said 3,500 MRAPs would be in Iraq this year, but he later scaled that back to 1,500, saying his first estimate was made “on the fly.”

Okay, some Pentagon officials were wildly optimistic in their 7,000 estimate, and then another official downsized the number by half, which was lowered once more by the military planners down to 1,500.

If Donald Rumsfeld were still running the Pentagon and the Iraq war, he might respond by saying you go to war, and continue to engage in combat, with the equipment you have, not the equipment you wish to have.

But what is the actual number of MRAPs making it to American troops in 2007 in Iraq?

Still, according to Multi-National Corps–Iraq, the first of the vehicles are being farmed out from Camp Liberty, near Baghdad. [...]

Two versions of the MRAPs are being fielded: one that holds six soldiers and one that holds 10.

The vehicles have V-shaped hulls to deflect blasts from underneath and have proved to withstand roadside bombs better than up-armored Humvees.

Since January, about 500 MRAPs have been delivered to the CENTCOM theater of operations, of which all but about 20 are in Iraq, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in mid-October. [...]

Jeez, about only 500 of 7,000 promised anti-mine tanks have made it the war zone in Iraq, forcing me to wonder how the military leaders, without Rummy in charge, could be so wildly off with MRAP projections. I'm sure the troops are grateful for a few hundred MRAPs, even though they need thousands.

More than four years after the disastrous Bush and Cheney war for Iraqi oil started, the troops they sent into harm's way still lack the armor required for this war. Support the troops; bring 'em home.