MRAP Follies

In the Thursday business section of the Washington Post, this article about Force Protection and their Marine Corps bid for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles.

The Pentagon inspector general's office has found that a program to deliver special armored vehicles to protect military personnel in Iraq from roadside bombs has been marred by delays and questionable contracting practices that may have endangered troops.

The office examined $2.2 billion worth of contracts for armored vehicles and kits to upgrade them, according to a report made available to The Washington Post yesterday. Investigators found, among other things, that the Marine Corps issued $416.7 million in sole-source contracts to Force Protection of Ladson, S.C., for armored vehicles. A sole-source contract is a deal awarded without competitive bidding, usually because the Pentagon determines the firm is the only one able to deliver a service or because it needs an item quickly. Yet the report found that Marine officials knew of other potential bidders and that some advocates of competition were overruled.

The contracts continued even though Force Protection "did not perform as a responsible contractor and repeatedly failed to meet contractual delivery schedules for getting vehicles to the theater," the report said. Under one contract issued in 2005, Force Protection failed to deliver 98 percent of 122 mine-resistant vehicles on time despite getting $6.7 million from the Marines to upgrade its production facilities.

The report, signed by Richard B. Jolliffe, assistant inspector general for acquisition and contract management, also found that a subsidiary of Armor Holdings of Jacksonville, Fla., was late delivering some crew-protection kits, which are added to vehicles' windows and doors, and provided others with missing and unusable components. The delays, including reinstalling the kits, "all resulted in increased risk to the lives of soldiers," according to the report, which is to be delivered to Congress today.

Wow. So there is a reason for the military to formally develop requirements and test industry candidates prior to rushing armored vehicles out to the field. Maybe it's not the smartest thing to just blindly listen to what the field soldiers claim they need and rush different versions of MRAPs out to the field.

Comments

[Maxtrue]

USA Today

Seems the DOD didn't rush protection out fast enough. Many media outlets including Democratic sources focus on the lack of speed. Speed v testing. I assume the DOD is losing both those races so far.

[NVH]

Good, fast, or cheap. Pick two. Looks like good and fast are the winners, depending on your angle of view

[Maxtrue]

update

[Robert Schlotfeldt]

I first learned about MRAP after noticing extensive burns on men wounded by IE. It was obvious that the Hummer provided too little protection against blast and shrapnal and was easily flipped and burned. Business has been booming in the burn center down in Texas. Burning is a shitty way to die and and if you don't die you might wish you had.

In any case I started doing a little research and found out about MRAP's such as the Couger. I passed this information on to one of our more capable politicians and she took action. I have subsequntly leaned that quite a few other people, including retired generals and leading Journalists were also bringing this matter to the attention of powerfull politicians. Fact is, no US soldier has yet died while in an MRAP. Talk all you want, but staying alive is usually a good thing. I expect that shaped charges being smuggled into Iraq by Iran will eventually distroy some MRAPs, but fact is that nobody as yet developed armor that will stop a well designed shaped charge. The US is already develping counter-measure for shaped charges.

Bob Gates is pushing extremely hard to get MRAP into the field because it is important to save Americans lives, and because we have invested between 1 and 2-million dollar in recruting and training officers and about $500,000 for each infantryman. Wounded men are worth just as much, but if they live you can add on the medical costs and disability payments. etc. If you start trying to figure out what one of our soldiers is worth you will quickly conclude that it's cheaper to provide decent equipment.

All three services requested quantities of MRAP starting in the 2005 budget, but their line item requests were denied by Rumsfeld. The result is thousand of dead and tens of thousands of wounded American soldiers. The delays caused by Rumsfeld mean that everyone is now under tremendous pressure to get MRAP vehicles into the field. The MRAPs now being ordered have been tested and there has been considerable thought as to what role MRAPs might play in our future systems and TOEs. Thus far MRAPs have been extremely effective in protecting out troops. Let's hope they continue to be as effective.

[J.]

Yes, it is important to protect our troops. It's the right thing to do, morally, financially, and objectively, if we want to suceed in future military battles. However, MRAPs are not the best solution. As I've outlined before, there are non-material solutions to this problem of IEDs and EFPs. We could spend billions on:

1) go after the bomb-makers. Better intel, better counter-insurgency ops.
2) don't create huge, slow, predictable targets (like MRAPs). Walk amongst the people.
3) win over the population by giving them security and utilities. Give Baghdad more than 8 hours of juice per day.

The MRAP solution is too expensive, too late, and imperils other major defense acquisition programs that are equally as important to force protection and mission success. I have no doubt that the US govt will continue to buy them because of emotional pitches such as yours, but logic would suggest that there are better alternatives.

[NVH]

You'll notice in the better, faster, cheaper acquisition strategy, that smarter is NEVER one of the choices...here here J.