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DoD wants $1.3B for MRAPs

Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Congress on Tuesday for more money to buy Mine Protected Ambush Resistant vehicles to protect troops in Iraq from insurgent bombs.

After meeting with key senators seeking permission to shift money from other Pentagon accounts to pay for the vehicles, Gates said the Pentagon has “found a way to accelerate production between now and the end of the year and it’s going to take a little extra money.” The money, officials said, will come from accounts meant for maintenance and equipment repair.

Gates will ask to shift $1.3 billion to the MRAP program, said a Pentagon and a congressional official. Both officials have knowledge of the program but asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

Of that $1.3 billion, $800 million will go to the Army, while the Marines will get $500 million. That’s on top of $2.4 billion in MRAP contracts announced by the Pentagon this year.

The top Democrat on the committee that supervises federal spending indicated support for the proposal, which congressional Democrats had sought.

“The White House is admitting that the Democratic Congress was right,” said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, after he met with Gates.

The Pentagon is speeding production of the vehicles in hopes of sending thousands of them as quickly as possible to Iraq.

The MRAP’s raised, V-shaped hull better protects troops from bombs buried in roads than armored Humvees, the military’s workhorse vehicle. Gates has made acquiring MRAPs his No. 1 priority, citing the safety they have provided Marines.

No Marines have been killed in more than 300 attacks on MRAPs.

On Monday, USA Today reported that military officials had balked at requests for MRAPs from commanders in the field and from midlevel Pentagon officials. Only in January did the Pentagon launch a major program to build the vehicles.

Gates’ request comes about 2½ years after Marines in the field made an urgent plea for 1,169 MRAPs for Marines in restive Anbar province. Instead of granting the February 2005 request for MRAPs, then-Marine commandant Gen. Michael Hagee decided that June to buy more armored Humvees, said Col. Dave Lapan, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon.

Hagee’s role in the decision had been unclear until Tuesday. He retired in January and could not be reached for comment Monday or Tuesday.

Lapan said Hagee decided against MRAPs two years ago because factory-built, armored Humvees were considered the best solution to the insurgent threat, which consisted of homemade-bomb blasts from the side, rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire.

Improvised explosive devices that blow up from below vehicles were not a pronounced threat at the time, Lapan said.

MRAPs also were being produced only in small numbers, Lapan said.

A House subcommittee will examine the program during a hearing Thursday.

Related reading:

DoD repeatedly balked at pleas for MRAPs