WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- Learning from past mistakes, the Pentagon is leaning on the U.S. Army to aggressively buy a new mine-resistant troop vehicle.
The Army originally wanted to buy 2,500 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles at about $1 million each, with the Marine Corps -- at about one-third of the size of the Army -- planning to buy 3,700, sending some 3,000 to Iraq.
But U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called on the Army to invest heavily in the massive vehicles, which are reinforced with armor and have a v-shaped chassis to deflect mine blasts.
The Army is now expected to request funds for nearly 18,000 MRAPs, with roughly half of them in 2008, according to InsideDefense.com and Army Times, both independent news organizations. The MRAPs would then be able to replace up-armored Humvees one for one.
In a May 2 letter to the services Gates said the MRAP should be "the highest priority Department of Defense acquisition priority" and said their production and fielding should be accelerated.
The Gates letter shows a sharp contrast to -- and perhaps lesson learned from -- former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who famously told a soldier in Kuwait who complained about the jerry-rigging armor on Humvees that "you go to war with the Army you have."
Improvised explosive devices or roadside bombs cause some 70 percent of all U.S. casualties in Iraq.
The MRAP family of vehicles is manufactured by Force Protection Industries Inc. in Ladson, S.C.
