After Years Of Misleading Excuses, Pentagon Finally Seeks Lifesaving Vehicles For Troops In Iraq

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/18/gates-mrap

After Years Of Misleading Excuses, Pentagon Finally Seeks Lifesaving Vehicles For Troops In Iraq

http://www.imgred.com/

Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Congress for more funds for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs), which are “designed to withstand the underbelly bombs that cripple the lower-riding Humvees,” such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), “the No. 1 killer of U.S. forces” in Iraq.

Gates’ request for the vehicles “comes about 2½ years after Marines in the field made an urgent plea for” MRAPs. Last month, Gates claimed that he had from reading a newspaper article, even though the technology was developed in the 1970s and the Pentagon had tested them in 2000.

Gates’s announcement follows similarly misleading excuses from high-ranking Pentagon officials, including then-Marine commandant Michael Hagee and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard B. Myers:

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As Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Kit Bond (R-MO) pointed out in a letter to Gates last month, if the Pentagon had stopped making excuses and starting producing MRAPs, “621 to 742 Americans” killed in IED attacks might still be alive.

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for a republican assault on the democrats in congress if they don't give bush a bill he wants to sign....betcha betcha.here's the talking point.. THE DEMOCRATS DON'T SUPPORT THE TROOPS....THE REPUBLICANS DO. blah blah blah

Someone is going to get very rich from these MRAP vehicles.

Here's an analogy. Let's say I drive my car on my driveway. It gets a flat tire. So I get a new tire, with thicker rubber. Next day, on my same driveway, my car gets another flat tire, so another new thicker tire. 3rd day, same thing...another flat tire, another new super thick tire. Isn't this ridiculous?

Wouldn't a person first sweep the driveway looking for nails and tacks and remove them before getting another flat tire?

Similar thing with the MRAPs. If a road consistently has our military vehicles blown up, wouldn't we look for the people blowing up the vehicles, or drive a different route, or maybe just walk down the road.

And why build all these MRAP vehicles!!! The majority of Americans want our troops home, not to stay longer in Iraq!



The MRAP is also expensive with a price of $1 million per vehicle, up to five times the cost of a Humvee. see this link...
http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3391689