Military faulted in bomb casualties

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The military ignored steps before the invasion of Iraq that could have prevented the staggering number of casualties from roadside bombs, the Pentagon’s acting inspector general charged Tuesday.

The IG’s report says that the military knew years before the war that mines and homemade bombs, which the military calls “improvised explosive devices,” would be a “threat ... in low-intensity conflicts” and that “mine-resistant vehicles” were available.

“Yet the military did not develop requirements for, fund or acquire” safer vehicles, the report says. The military invaded Iraq in 2003 “without having taken available steps to acquire technology to mitigate the known mine and IED risk to soldiers and Marines.”

Even after the war was under way, as the devices began taking a deadly toll and field commanders pressed for vehicles that were better protected from roadside bombs, the Pentagon was slow to act, the report says.

The IG’s office is headed by Acting Inspector General Gordon Heddell.

Explosive devices, including roadside bombs and mines, have caused nearly 25,000 deaths and injuries, according to the Pentagon, the top cause of death for U.S. service members in Iraq.

“It appears that some bureaucrats at the Pentagon have much to explain to the families of American troops who were killed or maimed when a lifesaving solution was within reach,” said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo.

Bond and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. — the vice president-elect — have been critical of the Pentagon over the vehicles, known as MRAPs. Pronounced em-wraps, it stands for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected.

For two years the senators have pushed to uncover why efforts to obtain safer vehicles and other protective equipment for combat troops have been ignored or delayed.

USA Today first reported about the problems getting MRAPs into combat last year.

The acting inspector general’s study dealt specifically with the Marines’ use of MRAPs. The report says that the inspector general also will look into how other military branches — presumably the Army — countered the threat of IEDs.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday that “great quantities” of MRAPs weren’t available at the early stages of the war.

“As the threat has evolved, so have our force-protection measures,” he said.

“Have we done so with the rapidity and the efficiency that we would have liked at all times? No, we haven’t. But to suggest that there was any sort of neglect, or people were sitting on their hands ignoring the urgent request of commanders in the field, is just not accurate.”