The Pentagon just spent more than $1 billion to buy thousands of those heavily armored, mine-resistant vehicles, to protect our Marines in Iraq against roadside bombs -- so that's good news, right? Because we all want to support the troops.
Sadly, the MRAPs may be obsolete before they're all shipped to the war zone, and useless for anything else after the Iraq war finally ends.
More dismal stuff below the fold.
The Pentagon just spent more than $1 billion to buy 2,400 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected "MRAP" vehicles for U.S. troops in Iraq. Those are the heavily armed vehicles with V-shaped hulls to disperse the explosive force of roadside bombs away from our troops inside. Such bombs -- improvised-explosive devices ["IEDs"] account for more than half of the U.S. fatalities in Iraq. So we need to get these vehicles to Iraq ASAP, right? Because we all support the troops. Especially President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Maybe we did go to war with the military we had, not the military we wished we had; but that was under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Since he's been gone, the Defense Department has kicked into high gear, and we're buying these MRAPs (at about a million bucks each, with shipping costs) and rushing 'em over at the staggering rate of . . .
Ten a day. Ten. And it may already be too late by the time they get there, because changing insurgent tactics are neutralizing the advantage of their heavy armor.
Time Magazine reported on this in "Doubts About A New Armored Vehicle."
The article notes "the push is on to get the MRAPs to Iraq as quickly as possible. The 2,400 the Marines bought Thursday will be delivered by April - at the speed of light, in Pentagon contracting terms." (Einstein might think that was relatively slow -- but I shouldn't make light of the situation, so let's move on.)
Shipping is a big part of the problem -- and the expense:
The U.S. military is currently paying about $130,000 apiece in shipping costs to get the MRAPs (stickered at $800,000 each) to Iraq via commercial and military cargo planes. There are already nearly 500 MRAPs in Iraq, with a goal of 1,500 by year's end. Currently, about 10 a day are being shipped. "We continue to get as many to theater as rapidly as we can so that optimally every Marine, some day, will be riding... in an MRAP-type of vehicle," Marine General James Conway said last Monday. "To date, we have lost no Marines or sailors in the al Anbar province to underbody explosions when they were riding in the MRAP."
The article notes there are many suppliers and different MRAP designs:
the Pentagon is buying 16 different kinds of MRAPs, each with its own requirements for maintenance, training and spare parts. The MRAPs, up to five times as heavy as the Humvees they are replacing, gulp a lot more fuel - fuel that gets to them inside thin-skinned tanker trucks that must travel Iraq's IED-laden roads.
This is just great. Our guys over there trying to do the mechanical work to keep these monsters moving can't even rely on standardized spare parts? And as these five-ton MRAPs need much more fuel, won't those "thin-skinned tanker trucks" have to make a lot more life-threatening trips on IED-laden roads? How many of our truck-driving troops will be exposed to additional danger, in order to protect the troops in the MRAPs? The Pentagon must have determined that the trade-off is worth it. Such is the cruel calculus of war.
Another problem with MRAPs is "the notion of sealing troops in metal cocoons is contrary to the Pentagon's notion of counter-insurgency warfare, which requires soldiers and Marines to mingle with the local population they are trying to win over," so they can gather intelligence on enemy locations and movements, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a respected military think tank. "The MRAP - at least in this situation - may send the wrong message to troops in the field," says a recent CSBA study.
That's disheartening. We're buying thousands of these vehicles, at a million bucks a copy, more or less, with shipping and all, and they may not even fit the counter-insurgency concepts supposedly underlying the mission. But at least we can be comforted with the knowledge that eventually we'll get our money's worth. These behemoths must have some future, post-Iraq utility. Right?
Maybe not. Marine Commandant James Conway, though saying it was imperative to get MRAPs to Iraq,
basically shrugged his shoulders over the question of how useful the 8,800 MRAPs now on order will be after Iraq. "Can I give a satisfactory answer to what we're going to be doing with those things in five or 10 years? Probably not," the Marines' top officer said. "Wrap them in shrink wrap and put them in asphalt somewhere is about the best thing that we can describe at this point. And as expensive as they are, that is probably not a good use of the taxpayers' money."
I should probably explain here, for the benefit of those whose lips are moving as they read this diary (i.e., trolls) that when General Conway states this is "probably not a good use of the taxpayers' money," he is employing a rhetorical device called understatement.
Well, okay. Even if we aren't getting our money's worth, at least we'll know our troops in Iraq will be well protected by next April or so. Except for the ones who get blown up between now and then. Right?
Wrong, actually.
Even in Iraq, there's a question of how well the new vehicles will protect against the growing threat posed by explosively formed penetrators, a new and insidious type of roadside bomb that Iraqi insurgents - allegedly with help from some forces inside neighboring Iran - are using more frequently against U.S. vehicles. An EFP uses an explosive charge to send a molten slug of copper through even the thickest armor. "If the use of EFPs becomes widespread," the CSBA report warns, "any advantage the MRAPs have against earlier forms of IEDs may be irrelevant."
This would be a real problem, except for the fact that copper is so rare, and I can't see how the insurgents could possibly get their hands on any. Unless they, like, raided an electrical generation station and made off with electrical coils, or stripped copper from old electric motors, but what's the chance they'd ever think of something like that?
Uh-oh. Problem. Here's a link to photos of copper deposits in Iran. They've got lots of copper, I guess. And Iran is right next door to Iraq; maybe you've heard.