Marine Corps claims described in congressional correspondence are at odds with the actual text of a February 2005 urgent needs request from Marines in Iraq.
In a letter Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote to Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) on June 26, 2007 (pdf), the following was written:
Press reports about the February 2005 Marine Corps Urgent Operational Needs Statement [pdf] that you referenced in your letter concerned me a great deal as well. Since learning of this needs statement, my Committee staff has met with the Marine Corps multiple times. The Marine Corps' answer to the Committee staff has been two-fold: 1) the Marine Corps has initiated its own internal review of how urgent operational needs statements are handled; and 2) the Marine Corps indicated that the request from theater called for more effective armor materiel, which came in the form of fragmentation kit upgrades, rather than a specialized vehicle like the MRAP. I have directed my Committee staff to continue meeting with the Marine Corps on this matter until the internal review is completed. [Emphasis added]
However, even the briefest look at the February 2005 request (pdf) shows otherwise; that is, that the Marines on the ground, in Iraq, requested MRAPs specifically. The first lines in that document on the first page, under "Description of Need," are:
MINE RESISTANT AMBUSH PROTECTED (MRAP) VEHICLE. This is a Priority 1 Urgent UNS in support of OIF EDL. Total AO requirement is 1169.
There is an immediate need for an MRAP vehicle capability to increase survivability and mobility of Marines operating in a hazardous fire area against known threats.
On its face, it seems that the Marine Corps engaged in telling the congressional staffers of the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee a bold-faced lie. The only other possibility is that Senator Levin's staffers misinterpreted or wrongly portrayed the Marine Corps' claims.
If it's the former, Congress should consider prosecuting the responsible parties for making false statements under 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Congress cannot intelligently and adequately perform its legislative and oversight functions if the executive branch is not providing it with truthful information--hence the existence of 18 U.S.C. § 1001. There need to be penalties for willfully misinforming Congress, especially on matters of life and death in wartime. These requests were not made by bureaucrats at the Pentagon, but by Marines in Iraq regarding a vehicles which, if procured sooner, could possibly have saved the lives of hundreds.
If Congress never penalizes or threatens to penalize those who lie to it, then it will only invite more dishonesty and a withering of its own stature.
-- Nick Schwellenbach
There is no debate here. If the Marines did not ask for an MRAP they most certainly should have. Further, they and the other branches of the military exposed to roadside bombs should have been equipped with MRAP's from the beginning. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome; Yet we send our soldiers out on patrol in HUMVEE's, they get blown up, and we keep doing the same thing over and over as if something is going to change. INSANE! We are arguably the richest, most technologically advanced country on the planet yet we treat our people as if they are disposable. Either equip the troops them with a vehicle that will insure their survivability in an attack or bring them home. If oversight is the debate, how about oversight of what level of representation each American citizen has for tax dollars collected. I doubt you could find one person who served or who had a son or daughter who has or is serving who would want their tax dollars spent on something other than the best protection technology can produce. Note, I did not say the best money can buy, or the lowest bidder can produce, I said the best technology can provide. Damn the cost! Not one penny should be spent on rebuilding Iraq or on foreign aid until our troops have what they need.
David K. McDonnell
Posted by: Dave | Jul 18, 2007 at 11:37 AM