A Failure to Protect the Troops?

AP: IED Strike: The deadly devices cause most U.S. casualties

Newsweek
June 25, 2007 issue - For U.S. troops in Iraq, May was the worst month since 2004, with 126 killed. The summer months may be worse, given a new Pentagon assessment concluding the surge is not reducing violence. Now a former Marine officer says the corps has failed to supply its Marines on the front lines with the best protection against the improvised explosive devices that cause most of the carnage. Since the start of 2005, the number of IEDs placed by insurgents has more than doubled. Retired Maj. Franz Gayl, a former adviser to the commander of the 1 Marine Expeditionary Force, told NEWSWEEK the Marine Corps shunted aside an "urgent" request back in February 2005 for 1,169 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles to replace the outclassed Humvees on Iraq's roads. The MRAP vehicles are on raised wheels and have a V-shaped chassis that diffuses the force of a blast underneath. "It was criminal negligence," says Gayl. "The numbers of preventable deaths from the MRAP delay are in the hundreds," although he admits such figures are speculative.

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