BY GOPAL RATNAM
JANUARY 6, 2015
The United States has answered Iraqi pleas for more heavy equipment, donating 250 mine-resistant armored vehicles to Baghdad. The mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs, are intended to withstand roadside bombs, the weapon of choice for Islamic State militants occupying large swaths of Iraq’s northern and western provinces, and the fresh infusion to Iraqi ranks is intended to help the beleaguered army better push back against the terrorist group.
The MRAPs being donated to Iraq are only the latest in a line of light and heavy weapons the United States has been rushing to Iraq to rebuild the country’s military, after several thousand Iraqi troops abandoned their equipment in the fight against Islamic State militants in the summer of 2014. Supplying new weapons to Iraq and refurbishing its poorly maintained war stocks has become an urgent priority for Barack Obama’s administration after nearly half the Iraqi Army that was trained and equipped by U.S. forces before 2011 — or about 24 brigades out of 50 — unraveled last summer in the face of the Islamic State’s brutal onslaught.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said in a statement that the armored vehicles will save Iraqi lives and help the country’s military forces battling the militant group. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi asked outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for more weapons to combat the militant group when the two met in Baghdad on Dec. 9.
About 2,000 U.S. military advisors and trainers are getting the Iraqi Army ready to mount a serious offensive this year to retake territory from the Islamic State. Another 1,000 American troops are on their way to Iraq to train Iraqis.
When U.S. troops left Iraq in 2011, they left behind several MRAP vehicles for the Iraqi Army to use. But many of those were captured by the Islamic State when Iraqi troops abandoned their positions. The U.S.-led air campaign to stop the militant group’s advances in Iraq and Syria have destroyed several of those MRAP vehicles used by the Islamic State fighters, according to U.S. Central Command.
Unlike the summer of 2014, when Iraqi forces under the leadership of then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki abandoned their equipment, the next offensive against the Islamic State, being planned for this year, will be under the watchful eyes of American trainers and advisors, likely making it difficult for the Iraqis to once again give up the fight. Used as intended, the armored vehicles can save soldiers’ lives — especially for a force that lacks the American capability to use helicopters to quickly evacuate injured troops from the battlefield.
The Pentagon also plans to sell Iraq about 175 M1A1 Abrams tanks; 146 Stryker anti-tank guided missile vehicles; 50 Stryker nuclear, biological, and chemical reconnaissance vehicles; thousands of Hellfire missiles; and a number of Bradley fighting vehicles. The 250 armored trucks likely came out of the U.S. stocks based in Kuwait, where the Pentagon has prepositioned war materiel.
The usefulness of the MRAP vehicles in the fight against the Islamic State is a contrast to the Pentagon’s plans to destroy the trucks in Afghanistan, which U.S. troops are set to leave by 2016. The trucks were designed and built in an unprecedented rush to protect American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan when insurgents in both countries deployed cheap roadside bombs that tore through lightly protected troop carriers, leaving many soldiers and Marines maimed.
The Pentagon spent about $45 billion and built about 28,000 MRAP vehicles since beginning production in 2007. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the design and production of the vehicle “the largest defense procurement program to go from decision to full industrial production in less than a year since World War II.”
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