New mine resistant vehicles top Marines' $3.2 billion wish list

The Marine Corps has sent a $3.2 billion wish list to Capitol Hill detailing equipment -- including new vehicles designed to better protect U.S. forces in Iraq -- that did not make the cut for the Defense Department's massive fiscal 2008 budget proposal.

In particular, the service would like another $2.8 billion next year to buy 2,700 additional Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles, whose V-shaped hull offers much better protection than armored Humvees against roadside bombs, by far the deadliest threat to U.S. troops in Iraq.

The Marine Corps already has received enough funding for this fiscal year to buy 805 vehicles, known as MRAPs. And service officials have requested enough money in the fiscal 2007 wartime supplemental to buy another 244 vehicles later this year, fulfilling the service's initial MRAP order.

But the Marine Corps requested only two MRAPs in the fiscal 2008 emergency spending request that the Bush administration sent to Congress last week along with next year's base budget proposal.

Marine Corps officials managing the cross-service program have told the House Armed Services Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee that the Defense Department plans to buy up to 4,100 MRAPs for the Army, Navy and Marines by Dec. 31.

But during a hearing last month, Marine Corps officers left the door open to substantially growing the number of MRAPs required for their force.

The Army, too, clearly wants more MRAPs now than they initially planned to acquire. Indeed, Army leaders sent their own unfunded priorities list to Capitol Hill last Friday, designating $2.2 billion for more of the vehicles.

The Marine Corps last year awarded South Carolina-based Force Protection Industries a sole-source contract to field the initial batch of more than 200 MRAP vehicles.

In late January, the Marine Corps awarded testing contracts to Force Protection and eight other companies, with each firm producing two vehicles by March for evaluation by the three services. The Marines may ultimately award several production contracts for the vehicle.

"My understanding is that the plant in South Carolina that produces these [vehicles] is operating at full capacity," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. "And we have ... put out bids for eight additional companies to provide demonstration models of a similar vehicle to see if we can increase the production as we go along."

With the American death toll rising -- mainly due to mounting roadside bomb attacks against U.S. convoys in Baghdad and Anbar province, lawmakers have spent the last few years pushing the Pentagon to more rapidly purchase so-called up-armored kits for Humvees and buy other devices to protect troops. They might do the same by pouring more money into the MRAP lines for the Army and Marine Corps.

The Marine Corps' so-called "unfunded priorities list," requested by House Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., is $600 million more than last year's list, and $400 million above the Corps' fiscal 2006 list.

In addition to the $2.8 billion for MRAP, the list includes helicopter upgrades and research dollars for such programs as the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System and the Common Aviation Command and Control System. The Marine Corps also highlighted $110 million in shortfalls in military construction accounts at 14 bases.