Report: Pentagon Going Overboard on MRAPs

For years, the Pentagon ignored calls to put heavily-armored vehicles on the streets of Iraq. Now, according to a new report, there's a good chance the Defense Department is overreacting -- buying way, way too many of the vehicles than is militarily or financially responsible.

The Pentagon is on track to buy 15,000 or more of the Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs -- at a cost of nearly a million dollars each. There's no question that the tough, bomb-deflecting vehicles are life-savers; soldiers are so secure inside the MRAPs, they sometimes don't even know when they've been hit with an improvised explosive. There's also no question that guerrilla types can and will build bigger bombs, to knock even these well-armored MRAPs out. So the vehicles are a short- to mid-term fix, as Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway acknowledged on Monday. According to the AP, "Conway said he sees the current procurement plans for the vehicles as a moral imperative, but that a longer-term assessment of military requirements is probably necessary."
Wired