To meet goal, DOD must send nearly 370 MRAPs per month to Iraq

Above: U.S. Marine Corps instructor at the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP) course at in Al Asad in July. Instructees drive through different road courses to obtain their MRAP license. The vehicles have V-shaped hulls that deflect blasts from underneath. The Defense Department originally announced it would send 3,500 MRAPs to Iraq this year, but later announced only 1,500 could be sent.

The Defense Department has to send nearly 370 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles per month to Iraq in order to meet its goal for 2007.

That is almost four times the number of vehicles the Pentagon was able to send to Iraq in September...

As of Oct. 2, about 390 MRAPs have been sent to Iraq so far this year, said Defense Department spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin.

Industry delivered 365 MRAPs to the government in September, but U.S. Transportation Command flew just 101 of the vehicles to Iraq that month, Irwin said.

Irwin explained that before MRAPs can be sent downrange, they need to have extra equipment such as radios installed at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in Charleston, S.C.

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