Reducing GIs deaths from IEDs

Reducing GIs deaths from IEDs
by Capt. Bill Kibble USAF (Ret.) Vietnam veteran

Regardless of how we feel about the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, we have a moral responsibility to provide the troops the safest armored vehicles available, so they can return to their loved ones unharmed. Some have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan up to five times; their combat tours have been extended up to 120-days; others are redeploying with less than a year's rest, and some have been involuntarily extended on active duty, after completing their service obligation, or are retirement eligible.

The sacrifices military families are making (they are the only Americans shouldering the entire burden of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars) aren't acknowledged when only $1.4 billion is budgeted, when $8.4 billion is needed, to buy 7,700 V-hull designed Mine -Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. (The $1.4 billion for MRAP funding is part of a pending $100 billion Defense supplemental bill) These “Humvees on steroids” channel a roadside bomb's deadly blast up the vehicle's bullet-proof, armored sides, reducing casualties 80 percent…

The mine-resistant vehicle design provides an immediate and dramatic increase in under-carriage protection for the crew. Currently, the armed forces only have about “300 mine-resistant vehicles!”

In Iraq, more than 1,000 Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks monthly cause 70 percent of the deaths and serious injuries. Roadside bomb attacks have made it so unsafe to travel on Iraq's roads, helicopters are pressed into service, transporting troops and supplies. In Afghanistan, the number of roadside bomb attacks have doubled – 783 in 2005 and 1,670 in 2006.

If only $1.4 billion is funded, how many thousands of preventable deaths and serious injuries will happen to other American's children; because they were attacked by an IED while riding in an up-armored Humvee instead of a MRAP vehicle? In 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: You go to war with the Army you have. That doesn't “cut it” four years later!

Deadly IED attacks – "the poor man's cruise missile" won't go away because planting them is one of Iraq's best paying jobs – about $600 per placement. Former CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid, retired, said IEDs are the enemy's most effective weapon – cheap, effective and anonymous.

"A collective realization is sinking in that up-armoring flat-bottom vehicles (Humvees) which aren't designed to take that kind of weight, and which have strict limits on the level of protection they can ever provide, is an inadequate response (to IED's)," according to Defense Industry Daily.

Protecting troops from IEDs, with a $700,000 mine-resistant vehicle, is morally right and cheaper than replacing service members in an All-Volunteer Force. A light tactical vehicle protects $2.64 million of the DOD's budget, the cost to care for and replace one wounded officer and four injured crewmen; replace an up-armored Humvee.

Those of us – whose sacrifices for the war against Islamic extremists includes watching depressing war news, and stressing whether our tax breaks, the first passed during wartime, will be extended in 2010 – have a moral obligation to lobby for military families.

We can be God's hands to answer the nightly prayer of tens of thousands of children from military families: “God, please bring my Mommy or Daddy home alive and unharmed from Iraq” Contact: President Bush: (202) 456-1111, [email protected]; Congressmen: www.house.gov; www.senate.gov. Ask them to fund 8.4 billion for 7,700  MRAP vehicles.

Please ask your friends to do the same. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Capt. Bill Kibble USAF (Ret.) Vietnam veteran
208.344.7053  [email protected]
5413 W. Lockport Dr.
Boise ID  83703