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Organizational Interests versus Battlefield Needs: The U.S. Military and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles in Iraq

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Abstract

In February 2005, U.S. Marine Corps commanders in Iraq submitted an urgent request for Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. MRAPs were seen as critical protection from improvised explosive devices, the most frequent cause of casualties. Yet significant progress to fill the request would not be made until June 2007. The most persuasive explanation for the delay can be found not in questions about the effectiveness of the vehicle but in organizational interest. Both the Army and Marine Corps believed that their core missions in the future would revolve around the use of lighter, more maneuverable forces. Because the MRAP was heavy, slow, and expensive, it threatened to derail the services' already established research and development priorities. Despite proof that the MRAP would provide important protection for troops in Iraq, the Army and Marine Corps chose to protect previous investments rather than adapt to emerging threats.

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Notes

  1. “Pentagon Dithering Turned U.S. Forces into Sitting Ducks,” U.S.A. Today, 17 July 2007.

  2. “Marine Corps General Defends Early MRAP Orders,” Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, 20 July 2007.

  3. Marine Corps request from field as quoted in Franz J. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” Ground Combat Element (GCE) Advocate Science and Technology (S&T) Advisor Case Study, (Headquarters, United States Marine Corps, 22 January 2008), 12 (accessed at pogoarchives.org/m/ns/mrap.mrap-gayl-20080122.pdf on 25 October 2008).

  4. Peter Eisler, Blake Morrison, and Tom Vanden Brook, “Pentagon Balked at Pleas for Safer Vehicles,” U.S.A. Today, 22 August 2007.

  5. The issue came to a head in December 2004 at a “town hall” meeting between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and troops stationed in Kuwait. When asked by a soldier about delays in getting better armored humvees, Rumsfeld seemed to trivialize the concern by responding “As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” See U.S. Department of Defense, News Transcript, “Secretary Rumsfeld Town Hall Meeting in Kuwait,” 8 December 2004.

  6. Geoff Fein, “MRAP Vehicles Top Marine Corps List of Unfunded Needs,” Defense Daily, 14 February 2007.

  7. Sharon Weinberger, “MRAP Eyes Formal Program Status,” Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, 21 February 2007.

  8. Gordon Lubold, “Why so Few Bomb-Safe US Military Trucks in Iraq?” Christian Science Monitor, 31 May 2007.

  9. Andrew Feickert, Mine-Resistant and Ambush-Protected (MRAP) Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 21 August 2007), 2; Andrew Feickert, Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV): Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 28 August 2008), 4.

  10. David S. Cloud, “Pentagon Seeks $1.2 billion for Trucks Made to Withstand Roadside Bombs,” The New York Times, 19 July 2007.

  11. Jim Garamone, “Top Marine Explains Cut in Purchase of Mine-Resistant Vehicles,” American Forces Press Service, 5 December 2007; Tom Vanden Brook and Peter Eisler, “Army May Revise Request for new combat vehicle,” U.S.A. Today, 11 December 2007.

  12. Marjorie Censer, “DOD Reports More Than 11,000 MRAP Vehicles Already in Theater,” InsideDefense.com, 11 August 2008 as cited in Feickert, Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), 4.

  13. Tom Vanden Brook and Kathy Kiely, “$1.3B Sought for Safer Vehicles; Gates Asks for Shift to Get MRAPS Faster,” U.S.A. Today, 18 July 2007.

  14. Icasualties.org, for example, is often cited by The Washington Post and The New York Times as a source for casualty estimates in Iraq.

  15. Based on Military Deaths per Year/Month at icasualties.org/oif/ and IED Fatalities by Month, US Only, at icasualties.org/oif/IED.aspx (accessed 24 September 2008).

  16. Doug Sample, “DOD Joint Task Force Making Progress Against IED Threat,” American Forces Press Service, News Articles, 18 April 2005.

  17. Headquarters, Department of the Army, and United States Marine Corps, “Improvised Explosive Device Defeat,” FMI 3-34.119/MCIP 3-17.01, September 2005.

  18. MRAPs have a variety of other safety features including energy absorbing seats and modular components that enable pieces of the vehicle to break away in case of a blast. See Defense Update: International Online Defense Magazine, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Armored Vehicles, www.defense-update.com/products/m/mrap/htm (accessed 8 December 2007).

  19. The success of MRAPs was documented in 1996 by a Marine Corps combat engineer: Wayne A. Sinclair, “Answering the Landmine,” Marine Corps Gazette 80 (July 1996): 37–40. The specific MRAP variants mentioned in this article are the same ones requested in the Marine Priority 1 Urgent Request of February 2005.

  20. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” 14–17.

  21. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Defense Management: More Transparency Needed over the Financial Capital Operations of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, March 2008), 1.

  22. For a summary of these problems see Clay Wilson, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan: Effects and Countermeasures (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 28 August 2007), 4–5.

  23. Michael Fabey, “Gates wants MRAPS Built, Delivered Faster,” Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, 3 July 2007.

  24. Michael Fabey, “Early MRAP Buys Delayed Vehicle Deliveries, IG Report Says,” Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, 17 July 2007.

  25. Initial MRAP contracts were for Category I MRAPs which carry six people and are used mostly for transportation and Category II MRAPs which carry at least ten people and have multiple functions.

  26. Ann Roosevelt, “MRAP Test Vehicles Arriving at APG for Testing,” Defense Daily, 6 March 2007.

  27. Tom Vanden Brook, “Army Seeks $20B for MRAPS, But Quick Fielding has Hurdles,” U.S.A. Today, 18 May 2007; and Geoff Fein, “MRAP Testing Nearing Completion, Contracts Expected in June,” Defense Daily, 25 April 2007.

  28. Ann Roosevelt, “General Dynamics, Force Protection, Competing for MRAP Program,” Defense Daily, 5 January 2007; “Marine Corps Awards Three More MRAP Contracts,” Defense Daily, 26 February 2007.

  29. Peter Eisler, “The Truck the Pentagon Wants and the Firm that Makes It,” U.S.A. Today, 2 October 2007.

  30. Testimony of Gordon McGilton, CEO, Force Protection, Inc, U.S. Congress, House Armed Services Committee, The Joint Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle Program, 110th Cong., 1st sess., 8 November 2007.

  31. Testimony of John Young, Director, MRAP Task Force, U.S. Congress, The Joint Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle Program.

  32. U.S. Congress, The Joint Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle Program.

  33. Cloud, “Pentagon seeks $1.2 Billion for Trucks”; U.S Congress, The Joint Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle Program.

  34. U.S. Congress, The Joint Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle Program.

  35. Interview, Tommy Pruitt, Senior Communications Director, Force Protection Inc., 4 November 2008.

  36. United States Department of Defense, Inspector General, “Procurement Policy for Armored Vehicles,” Report No. D-207-107, 27 June 2007, 11–13.

  37. Inspector General, “Procurement Policy for Armored Vehicles.”

  38. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” 52–53.

  39. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” 69.

  40. Jim Lehrer News Hours, “Procurement process slows deployment of improved vehicles,” aired 27 September 2007, accessed at www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec07/vehicle_09.27.html (28 October 2008).

  41. See, for example, Editorial, “Pentagon Dithering Turned U.S. Forces into Sitting Ducks,” U.S.A. Today, 17 July 2007; Eisler et al., “Pentagon Balked at Pleas for Safer Vehicles.”

  42. Blake Morrison, Tom Vanden Brook, and Peter Eisler, “When the Pentagon Failed to Buy Enough Body Armor, Electronic Jammers and Hardened Vehicles to Protect US Troops from Roadside Bombs in Iraq, Congress Stepped In. Lawmakers say their Actions Saved Lives. Should the Military have Done More?” U.S.A. Today, 4 September 2007.

  43. Tom Vanden Brook, “Marines Halt MRAP Report; Scientists Critical of Program had Planned Further Studies,” U.S.A. Today, 27 February 2008. Gayl's accusations about the unnecessary delays and inappropriate procedures were subsequently verified by the defense department. See Department of Defense Inspector General, “Results in Brief: Marine Corps Implementation of the Urgent Universal Needs Process for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles,” Report No. D-2009-030, 8 December 2008.

  44. With respect to the military services, the classic work is Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), which discusses the origins of the “personality” of each service and how this influences their strategy and planning.

  45. For one of the classic works on organizations and their interests, see James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy (New York: Basic Books, 1989). For the application of this idea to the U.S. military, see Douglas N. Campbell, The Warthog and the Close Air Support Debate (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 2003).

  46. Examples include Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); Edward L. Katzenbach, “The Horse Cavalry in the Twentieth Century: A Study in Policy Response,” in Readings in American Foreign Policy, ed. Morton H. Halperin and Arnold Kanter (Boston: Little Brown, 1973), 172–90.

  47. See, for example, Donald H. Rumsfeld, “Transforming the Military,” Foreign Affairs 81 (May/June 2002): 20–32.

  48. Thomas K. Adams, The Army after Next: The First Postindustrial Army (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008), 5.

  49. U.S. Army, “US Army White Paper: Concepts for the Objective Force,” Department of the Army, 2001, as quoted in Adams, The Army after Next. Adams chronicles the feelings of deep inadequacy and concern and the push towards greater mobility that characterized Army planning in the late 1990s and early 2000s. See The Army After Next and especially the first two chapters.

  50. See, for example, the U.S. Army posture statements from 2003–2008, all of which attest to the centrality of the Future Combat System in modernization plans.

  51. U.S. Army, 2005 Posture Statement, 10.

  52. For an overview of the Future Combat System, see U.S. Army, “Program Manger, FCS,” www.fsc.army.mil (accessed 16 November 2008).

  53. For a history and summary of these concerns see U.S. Government Accountability Office, Defense Acquisitions: Future Combat Systems Challenges and Prospects for Success (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 16 March 2005). Eventually, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates would cancel the manned ground vehicles at the heart of FCS in 2009.

  54. See U.S. Army, 2008 Army Posture Statement, 5.

  55. Program goals and milestones can be found at the Marine Corps’ website for the program, www.efv.usmc.mil/highlights.asp (accessed 18 November 2008).

  56. See Andrew Feickert, The Marines’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV): Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 10 September 2008).

  57. Feickert, The Marines’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), 5.

  58. Feickert, Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), 4.

  59. Adams, The Army After Next, 1–5.

  60. Andrew Feickert, Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) Vehicles, 1.

  61. Richard Lardner, “Fatal MRAP Rollovers Prompt Warnings,” Marine Corps Times, 25 July 2008.

  62. Based upon projected specifications for the JLTV. See “Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV)” and “Shadow RST-V Reconnaissance Surveillance Targeting Vehicle,” www.Army-technology.com/programs (accesses 18 November 2008).

  63. U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, “JLTV Purchase Description,” http://contracting.tacom.army.mil/majorsys/jltv/Day%201%20-%201500%20-%20PD%20Over%20-%20(various).ppt#466,41,JLTV Purchase Description (accessed 21 November 2008). According to Tom Vanden Brook, “MRAP Delivery may Fall Short,” U.S.A. Today, 23 August 2007, it costs $135,000 to move one MRAP by air. Further, according to Tommy Pruitt, Senior Communications Director, Force Protection Inc. (interviewed on 4 November 2008), the bulk of the vehicle means that it is actually quicker to transport larger numbers by sea because only a small number can be loaded into a single aircraft.

  64. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” viii.

  65. Michael Fabey, “Pentagon Investment in Ground Vehicles Rivals Fixed-Wing Costs,” Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, 28 February 2008.

  66. Sandra I. Erwin, “Slow Down: Next-Generation Humvee Faces Delays, Budget Crunch,” National Defense, 1 April 2007.

  67. Tom Vanden Brook, “Army Seeks $20b for Mraps, But Quick Fielding has Hurdles,” U.S.A. Today, 28 May 2007.

  68. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” 18, 21, 24.

  69. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” 19–21.

  70. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” 21, 31, 38.

  71. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” 24.

  72. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” 25.

  73. Gayl, “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP),” 48.

  74. Bryan Bender, “Panel on Iraq Bombings Grows to $3b Effort: Critics Say It Has Been Ineffective,” The Boston Globe, 25 June 2006.

  75. U.S. Congress, House Armed Services Committee, The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle Program, 110th Cong., 1st sess., 19 July 2007.

  76. U.S. Congress, House Armed Services Committee, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005—H.R. 4200 and Oversight of Previously Authorized Programs, 4, 17, 25 March and 1 April 2004, 108th Cong., 2nd sess., 442–50.

  77. U.S. Congress, House Armed Services Committee, Combat Vehicle Active Protection Systems, 109th Congress, 2nd sess., 21 September 2006, 9.

  78. Jefferson Morris, “Army Secretary Defends Vehicle Protection Strategy,” Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, 2 March 2007.

  79. Fawzia Sheiky, “Industry Unclear About Army's Plans for Joint-Services MRAP Program,” insidedefense.com, 12 February 2007.

  80. “C-5 Delivers 10,000th MRAP to Middle East,” Air Force Times.com, 25 September 2008.

  81. William H. McMichael, “IED Casualties in Iraq Drop Sharply,” Navy Times, 28 September 2008.

  82. “MRAP Readiness Rates Exceed 90 Percent Goal,” Inside the Army, 14 July 2008, 1.

  83. Nathan Hodge, “USMC Confirms Plans to Trim MRAP Purchase,” Jane's Defence Weekly, 12 December 2007; Jim Garamone, “Top Marine Explains Cut in Purchase of Mine-resistant Vehicles,” American Forces Press Service, 5 December 2007.

  84. Emelie Rutherford, “DOD Eyes Stretching Out Coming MRAP Order, Unclear if MRAP II will be Part,” Defense Daily, 4 June 2008.

  85. See, for example, Andrew Krepinevich and Dakota Wood, Of IEDs and MRAPs: Force Protection in Complex Irregular Operations (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2007).

  86. Christian Lowe, “Marines Urge Caution on MRAP Fielding,” Military.com, 19 October 2007.

  87. See, for example, U.S. Government Accountability Office, Stabilizing Iraq: An Assessment of the Security Situation (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 11 September 2006), GAO-06-1094T.

  88. Herbert Simon, Administrative Behavior (New York: Macmillan, 1957), 204–06, and Richard Cyert and James March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 1992).

  89. See, for example, Thomas L. McNaugher, New Weapons Old Politics (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1989), especially chapter 5.

  90. This is illustrated by the battle to cancel the F-22 fighter, an aircraft that ran significantly over budget and that was initially justified by Cold War threats that were irrelevant long before the program's cancellation in 2009.

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    Sharon K Weiner

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Jennifer Chipman provided invaluable research assistance for this paper. I also thank Rebecca Williams for research support, Stephen Kroll for helpful comments, and one anonymous reviewer for Polity for providing critical input. The conclusions offered here, as well as responsibility for any errors, are mine alone.

Sharon Weinberger, “Military Dragged Feet on Bomb-Proof Vehicles (Updated Again),” Wired, 22 May 2007.

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Weiner, S. Organizational Interests versus Battlefield Needs: The U.S. Military and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles in Iraq. Polity 42, 461–482 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/pol.2010.15

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