Marines Want No More Humvees in Iraq
Congress has already funded 1049 MRAPs in the regular 2007 budget as well as supplemental appropriations for Iraq. That's more MRAPs than can be produced in the US in one year, at current production rates.
The Marine Corps wants to replace all Humvees in Iraq because of their high death toll. Almost two-thirds of the 700 Marines who have died in Iraq were killed in Humvees.
The Marine's $2.8 billion request for 2,700 MRAPs to replace Humvees is part of a $3.2 billion "wish list" of equipment that "that did not make the cut for the Defense Department's massive fiscal 2008 budget proposal... [It's] $600 million more than last year's list, and $400 million above the Corps' fiscal 2006 list."
The Army reportedly "will continue to rely primarily on armored Humvees" and another story says that the Army wants MRAPs as "additional equipment."
Who Will Build Them?
The supplemental request seems to be a moot one. There is only one vendor -- Force Protection Industries of South Carolina -- making these vehicles under a test contract with the Marine Corps. It can make 50 per month. That's 600 per year. But wait ... we'll just enable more companies to make these million dollar machines!
In late January, the Marine Corps awarded testing contracts to Force Protection and eight other companies, with each firm producing two vehicles by March for evaluation by the three services. The Marines may ultimately award several production contracts for the vehicle.
Right now, the Army and Marine bomb-disposal squads have about 465 MRAPs. They are V-hulled vehicles, a decades-old design that is safer than Humvees because it deflects roadside explosive forces upward and outward.
The Marines make it clear that this request is only because of the fight in Iraq -- and they'd like to replace all 3,700 Humvees but it will take until 2009.
What do the Marines know that the American public doesn't know? They're planning on still being in full force in 2009?