DoD knew Humvees “a death trap” since the ’90s
‘91, ‘94 reports labeled Humvee as ‘deathtrap’
WASHINGTON – Army and Marine Corps officials knew nearly a decade before the invasion of Iraq that its workhorse Humvee vehicle was a “deathtrap,” even with armor added to protect it against roadside bombs, according to an inspector general’s report.
Reports distributed throughout the Army and Marine Corps after the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the Somalia conflict in 1994 urged the development of armored vehicles to avoid the devastating effects of roadside bombs and land mines, but the Pentagon failed to act, the report says.
The Pentagon didn’t field significant numbers of mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles until 2007, more than three years after roadside bombings began to escalate in the Iraq war.
</em>
A larger military budget than the rest of the world- combined- and we send our children out to die in substandard machines for over 15 years. But hey, I imagine some stickyfingered defense contractor made a buck, so all’s well in Amerika.
