We found that the Iraqis were happy to be “liberated” from Saddam Hussein, but were not prepared to endure a 30-40 year occupation while their oil was siphoned out of the ground and into ExxonMobil’s bank accounts.
A resistance quickly formed, which was perhaps unsurprising. Suppose someone invaded our country in order to oust a terrible dictator (if you could imagine a madman dictator in the US) and then decided to stay in order to mediate the civil war that ensued when something like 27% of Americans rose up in anger because their madman had been deposed. Now, it’s not a perfect analogy, since the historical example has the psychotic religious extremists among the 73% of Americans, rather than among the 27%, but I just asked you to imagine, remember?
Not content to wage their revolt by rifle against the liberators who showed they had no intention of leaving by quickly building very large, reinforced base camps and a huuuuge administration compound, the resistance quickly turned to the bomb, which is a cost-effective method of fighting back against the occupiers.
As the butcher’s bill of dead and wounded rose alarmingly, the occupation sought an answer and discovered MRAPs seemed to give some safety to their patrols.
We went in big for MRAPs.
They weren’t a perfect answer, but they were better protection than HumVees, even those with armor. And so we’re buying thousands of them to outfit our troops for their decades-long occupation of Iraq, and (possibly) other Middle Eastern countries.
The Marines have recently suggested slowing down the production flow of MRAPs into Iraq because:
Marine commanders in Iraq are asking the Pentagon to slow down deployment of IED-resistant vehicles in order to give them more time to figure out how best to employ the heavily-armored trucks, a top Corps official Wednesday.Congress and the Pentagon have devoted billions to a crash program to field so-called Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles that are said to protect troops from deadly roadside bombs more effectively than up-armored Humvees. But the vehicles are more than four times heavier than an armored Humvee and may require different tactics for their use.
This is the same Marine Corps that was busting down the doors of the Pentagon back in 2005 for the vehicles. Now they’re not so sure the rush is warranted.
"I would say 'relax,' we don't know how we're going to use them, nobody does," said Brig. Gen. select Larry Nicholson, deputy commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command based in Quantico, Va. "And anyone who says ... 'this is exactly how many we need and this is exactly how we're going to use them' is not being truthful."
I don’t understand what truth has to do with war, conquest, empire, or military procurement, but I’m just an old brokedown sergeant.
UPDATE: The well-regarded Armchair Generalist has an article explaining why he thinks the MRAP program is a bad idea. It's well worth reading for some insight into the economic, strategic and tactical implications of this truck and why it may not have been properly thought out.
Main & Central Articles on MRAPs
Marine MRAPs Mired in Minutiae
MRAPs Get Bad Press From Pentagon
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