We ran a story this morning on Military.com about the Pentagon Inspector General report on the response by the Marine Corps to Urgent Universal Needs requests for MRAP-style vehicles. The IG posted a brief summary of its findings on the DoD web site, so take a look and assess if for yourself.
It seems to me the IG ruled on a very narrow set of factors, namely how did the Corps respond to an UNS of this nature -- when hundreds of UNSs were coming in and other commanders deemed M1114 Humvees a better match for the threat vs mobility equation. The whole UNS process was new and commanders were constantly looking over there shoulder to see how much heat they'd get on their prioritization of these requests. What was more important, scope covers or thigh holsters?
Here's what the IG said:
We recommend that the Director, Joint Staff establish procedures in Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3470.01, Rapid Validation and Resourcing of Joint Urgent Operational Needs (JUONs) in the Year of Execution, July 15, 2005, and that the Commanding General, MCCDC establish procedures in Marine Corps Order 3900.17, The Marine Corps Urgent Needs Process (UNP) and the Urgent Universal Need Statement (Urgent UNS), October 17, 2008, to enable Service requirements developers to forward urgent requirements that may have joint-Service applicability directly to the appropriate combatant commander for endorsement and subsequent submission to the Joint Staff for validation as a Joint Urgent Operational Need.
But I thought this line was most significant:
DoD was aware of the threat posed by mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in low-intensity conflicts and of the availability of mine-resistant vehicles years before insurgent actions began in Iraq in 2003. Yet DoD did not develop requirements for, fund, or acquire MRAP-type vehicles for low-intensity conflicts that involved mines and IEDs. As a result, the Department entered into operations in Iraq without having taken available steps to acquire technology to mitigate the known mine and IED risk to soldiers and Marines. We are making recommendations only to the Marine Corps because the scope of our audit was limited to a review of Marine Corps actions to address the IED threat. We plan to address other Services actions to counter the IED threat during future audits.
So, the IG is saying the Pentagon knew about the threat and did nothing about it? I can see this on one level but then I was there in summer of '03 and IEDs just weren't a threat at the time...No one was talking about them and most of the time we were rolling around Baghdad in soft vehicles without ever even thinking about mines or IEDs.
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-- Christian
