Statement of Janice L. Mathis, Esq. and
The Rainbow PUSH Coalition on
Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles for Iraq
 

The Department of Defense has ordered 4060 mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles from Force Protection, Inc, a publicly traded company based in South Carolina.  Unfortunately, according to Brig. Gen. Michael Brogan, the vehicles will not be delivered until this time next year.  These vehicles are engineered with a unique v-shaped hull to disperse and resist the impact of IED explosions, saving lives and limbs.

While another 20,000 troops are surging to Iraq, the most modern and safe transport equipment available will lag their arrival in Baghdad by 12 months.  During World War II domestic auto production was halted and sugar, gasoline and nylon hosiery were rationed so that the nation could properly equip U.S. troops serving the national interest. 

It makes Charlie Rangel’s call for a draft plausible.  Our forces are at war, but the nation is not. Perhaps because the struggle in Iraq is based on flawed logic and false intelligence, U.S. citizens don’t see it as “our” war.  But they are still our troops and they deserve the best materials and supplies that we can muster.  If the mission in Iraq is central enough to U.S. national security to deploy 150,000 U.S. troops, then surely it is important enough to commandeer the nation’s industrial base to supply MRAP’s. 

To hurriedly send young Americans into combat as a last-ditch measure to justify a failed war in Iraq while the trucks that will save their lives and limbs are a year away is unwise, unnecessary and unconscionable.  Perhaps Ford Motor Co. could be implored to mop up some of its $12 billion in red ink by retrofitting a few of the 16 plants it intends to close and redeploying a few thousand of the workers it intends to let go in order to produce more MRAPs faster.  If we can’t properly  equip them, then we cannot in good conscience ask them to serve.