Procurement Officers Fail our Troops in Iraq

Senators call for probe on MRAP report's claims

By Peter Eisler and Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Two senators Sunday urged the Pentagon to investigate a Marine Corps report that says procurement officers spurned requests from commanders in Iraq for blast-resistant vehicles because they didn't want to derail other projects.

Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Kit Bond, R-Mo., called for an official probe. The report says that hundreds of Marines died from roadside bombs because the Corps was slow to fill commanders' requests for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs.

"This is a stark warning that the military brass back home is not acting on needs of our war fighters," Biden said in a written statement. "We need an official investigation to figure out why this happened and to make sure it never happens again."

The report by Marine science adviser Franz Gayl asserts that procurement officers needlessly delayed responding to a February 2005 request for 1,169 MRAPs to protect troops from improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that were destroying their Humvees. Those officials were wed to a long-term plan to replace the Marines' Humvees with a new truck — the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle — that isn't slated for deployment until at least 2012, the report says.

- rest at www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-02-17-MRAP_N.htm