WASHINGTON -- Marines in heavily armored Humvees are being killed by powerful roadside bombs at such a rate that the Marine Corps intends to replace all its Humvees in Iraq with specialized blast-resistant armored vehicles, according to senior Marine officers.
The Army will continue to rely primarily on its armored Humvees in Iraq, senior Army officers said yesterday.
The decision to scrap the Marines' Humvees in Iraq, after years of trying to protect their crews by adding armor plate, was made by Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of Marine forces in the Middle East.
It will cost an added $2.8 billion for the V-hull armored vehicles called MRAPs, or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, that are being delivered in small numbers to Iraq, and it will take years to complete the replacement.
The Marines and the Army are buying MRAP vehicles and had planned to gradually add them to the fleets of Humvees in use in Iraq.
More than 700 Marines have been killed in Iraq since the war began almost four years ago. Almost two-thirds have been killed in Humvees, Marine officers said. Experience with the 65 MRAP vehicles the Marines have in Iraq shows that their crews are four or five times more likely to survive a blast than those riding in armored Humvees.
Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, defended the service's decision not to replace its Humvees with MRAPs, though he acknowledged yesterday that the effort to protect soldiers by adding armor to Humvees seems to have reached an end.
"We have maximized what a Humvee can do," he told the House Armed Services Committee.
Schoomaker, who is retiring this spring after four years at the head of the Army, seemed to reflect the frustrations of trying to protect soldiers from bomb blasts, especially in a bitter and bloody war in which insurgents can invent different and more lethal bombs faster than the Pentagon and U.S. industry can devise protection.
"We are equipping with the best we have," he said. "We are losing not only Humvees, but we're losing tanks, Bradleys and Strykers" fighting vehicles.
Rep. Gene Taylor, a Mississippi Democrat, accused the Army of "dragging its feet on getting more MRAP-type vehicles to Iraq." He said Congress is eager to fund more MRAP vehicles, even at a cost that can reach $700,000 each. "We would much rather spend the money on the MRAP ... than have one kid needlessly buried at Arlington or one kid needlessly without their arms or legs."
