Lack of MRAPSs costs Marine lives

[M1A1TC]

Here is a good read. I hope the Marines in the upcoming USMC module dont suffer the same fate.

Study: Lack of MRAPs cost Marine lives By RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 27 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes.

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The study, written by a civilian Marine Corps official and obtained by The Associated Press, accuses the service of "gross mismanagement" that delayed deliveries of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks for more than two years.

Cost was a driving factor in the decision to turn down the request for the so-called MRAPs, according to the study. Stateside authorities saw the hulking vehicles, which can cost as much as a $1 million each, as a financial threat to programs aimed at developing lighter vehicles that were years from being fielded.

After Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared the MRAP (pronounced M-rap) the Pentagon's No. 1 acquisition priority in May 2007, the trucks began to be shipped to Iraq in large quantities.

The vehicles weigh as much as 40 tons and have been effective at protecting American forces from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents. Only four U.S. troops have been killed by such bombs while riding in MRAPs; three of those deaths occurred in older versions of the vehicles.

The study's author, Franz J. Gayl, catalogs what he says were flawed decisions and missteps by midlevel managers in Marine Corps offices that occurred well before Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld in December 2006.

Among the findings in the Jan. 22 study:

• Budget and procurement managers failed to recognize the damage being done by IEDs in late 2004 and early 2005 and were convinced the best solution was adding more armor to the less-sturdy Humvees the Marines were using. Humvees, even those with extra layers of steel, proved incapable of blunting the increasingly powerful explosives planted by insurgents.

• An urgent February 2005 request for MRAPs got lost in bureaucracy. It was signed by then-Brig. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, who asked for 1,169 of the vehicles. The Marines could not continue to take "serious and grave casualties" caused by IEDs when a solution was commercially available, wrote Hejlik, who was a commander in western Iraq from June 2004 to February 2005.

Gayl cites documents showing Hejlik's request was shuttled to a civilian logistics official at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in suburban Washington who had little experience with military vehicles. As a result, there was more concern over how the MRAP would upset the Marine Corps' supply and maintenance chains than there was in getting the troops a truck that would keep them alive, the study contends.

• The Marine Corps' acquisition staff didn't give top leaders correct information. Gen. James Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, was not told of the gravity of Hejlik's MRAP request and the real reasons it was shelved, Gayl writes. That resulted in Conway giving "inaccurate and incomplete" information to Congress about why buying MRAPs was not hotly pursued.

• The Combat Development Command, which decides what gear to buy, treated the MRAP as an expensive obstacle to long-range plans for equipment that was more mobile and fit into the Marines Corps' vision as a rapid reaction force. Those projects included a Humvee replacement called the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and a new vehicle for reconnaissance and surveillance missions.

The MRAPs didn't meet this fast-moving standard and so the Combat Development Command didn't want to buy them, according to Gayl. The study calls this approach a "Cold War orientation" that suffocates the ability to react to emergency situations.

• The Combat Development Command has managers — some of whom are retired Marines — who lack adequate technical credentials. They have outdated views of what works on the battlefield and how the defense industry operates, Gayl says. Yet they are in position to ignore or overrule calls from deployed commanders.

An inquiry should be conducted by the Marine Corps inspector general to determine if any military or government employees are culpable for failing to rush critical gear to the troops, recommends Gayl, who prepared the study for the Marine Corps' plans, policies and operations department.

The study was obtained by the AP from a nongovernment source.

"If the mass procurement and fielding of MRAPs had begun in 2005 in response to the known and acknowledged threats at that time, as the (Marine Corps) is doing today, hundreds of deaths and injuries could have been prevented," writes Gayl, the science and technology adviser to Lt. Gen. Richard Natonski, who heads the department. "While the possibility of individual corruption remains undetermined, the existence of corrupted MRAP processes is likely, and worthy of (inspector general) investigation."

Gayl, who has clashed with his superiors in the past and filed for whistle-blower protection last year, uses official Marine Corps documents, e-mails, briefing charts, memos, congressional testimony, and news articles to make his case.

He was not allowed to interview or correspond with any employees connected to the Combat Development Command. The study's cover page says the views in the study are his own.

Maj. Manuel Delarosa, a Marine Corps spokesman, called Gayl's study "predecisional staff work" and said it would be inappropriate to comment on it. Delarosa said, "It would be inaccurate to state that Lt. Gen. Natonski has seen or is even aware of" the study.

Last year, the service defended the decision to not buy MRAPs after receiving the 2005 request. There were too few companies able to make the vehicles, and armored Humvees were adequate, officials said then.

Hejlik, who is now a major general and heads Marine Corps Special Operations Command, has cast his 2005 statement as more of a recommendation than a demand for a specific system.

The term mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle "was very generic" and intended to guide a broader discussion of what type of truck would be needed to defend against the changing threats troops in the field faced, Hejlik told reporters in May 2007. "I don't think there was any intent by anybody to do anything but the right thing."

The study does not say precisely how many Marine casualties Gayl thinks occurred due to the lack of MRAPs, which have V-shaped hulls that deflect blasts out and away from the vehicles.

Gayl cites a March 1, 2007, memo from Conway to Gen. Peter Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which Conway said 150 service members were killed and an additional 1,500 were seriously injured in the prior nine months by IEDs while traveling in vehicles.

The MRAP, Conway told Pace, could reduce IED casualties in vehicles by 80 percent. He told Pace an urgent request for the vehicles was submitted by a Marine commander in May 2006. No mention is made of Hejlik's call more than a year before.

Delivering MRAPs to Marines in Iraq, Conway wrote, was his "number one unfilled warfighting requirement at this time." Overall, he added, the Marine Corps needed 3,700 of the trucks — more than three times the number requested by Hejlik in 2005.

More than 3,200 U.S. troops, including 824 Marines, have been killed in action in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. An additional 29,000 have been wounded, nearly 8,400 of them Marines. The majority of the deaths and injuries have been caused by explosive devices, according to the Defense Department.

Congress has provided more than $22 billion for 15,000 MRAPs the Defense Department plans to acquire, mostly for the Army. Depending on the size of the vehicle and how it is equipped, the trucks can cost between $450,000 and $1 million.

As of May 2007, roughly 120 MRAPs were being used by troops from all the military services, Pentagon records show. Now, more than 2,150 are in the hands of personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Marines have 900 of those.

One section of Gayl's study analyzes a letter Conway sent in late July 2007 to Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Kit Bond, R-Mo., two critics of delays in sending equipment to Iraq.

More heavily armored Humvees were determined to be the best response to the 2005 MRAP request, the commandant told the senators. He also said the industrial capacity to build MRAPs in large numbers "did not exist" when the request was submitted. Additionally, although the trucks had been fielded in small numbers, they were not adequately tested and exhibited reliability problems, the letter said.

The letter to the senators is evidence of the "bad advice" senior Marine Corps leaders receive, Gayl contends. The letter, he says, portions of which were probably drafted by the Combat Development Command, omitted that the urgent 2005 request from the Iraq battlefield specifically asked for MRAPs — and not more heavily armored Humvees. It also ignored the Marines' own findings that armored Humvees wouldn't stop IEDs.

Conway's assertion there was a lack of manufacturing capacity to build MRAPs is "inexplicable," Gayl says. Manufacturers would have hurried production if they knew the Marines wanted them and any reliability issues would have been resolved, he says.

In late November, the Marine Corps announced it would buy 2,300 MRAPs — 1,400 fewer than planned. Improved security in Iraq, changes in tactics, and decreasing troop levels allowed for the cut. But Marine officials also listed several downsides to the MRAP: The vehicles are too tall and heavy to pursue the enemy down narrow streets, on rough terrain or across many bridges.

If MRAPs arrived to Iraq late, or proved too bulky for certain missions, the Marine Corps should have come up with different and better solutions several years ago when the IED crisis was growing, Gayl contends.

A former Marine officer, Gayl spent nearly six months in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 as an adviser to leaders of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

His stinging indictment of the Marine Corps' system for fielding gear is not a first. He has been an outspoken advocate for non-lethal weapons, such as a beam gun that stings but doesn't kill and "dazzlers" that use a powerful light beam to steer unwelcome vehicles and people from checkpoints and convoys.

The failure to send these alternative weapons to Iraq has led to U.S. casualties and the deaths of Iraqi civilians, Gayl has said.

Gayl filed for whistle-blower protection in May with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. He said he was threatened with disciplinary action after meeting with congressional staff on Capitol Hill.

Biden and Bond rebuked the Marine Corps in September for "apparent retaliation" against Gayl.

___

Associated Press researcher Monika Mathur contributed to this report from New York.

[John Kettler]

M1A1TankCommander,

A good read indeed! Google has a ton of stuff on the MRAP, but I have one of my own. Saw two of these the other day paralleling me on the access road inside Naval Base Ventura County as I passed through Port Hueneme. Gigantic, hulking mechanical monsters!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/david_axe/774108657/in/set-72157600756537111/

Regards,

John Kettler

[Splinty]

What the report doesn't mention is that in the last 18 months the major troop killer has been the Explosively Formed Projectile, which can pierce the armor of an M1 Abrams much less the armor of a MRAPS or armored HMMVW.

[LongLeftFlank]

I'm not an expert, but one would think that these lethal weapons need to be a lot more carefully emplaced (i.e. pointed, requiring a deeper hole and a better trained planter) to be fully effective.

In contrast -- IIUC --- any local punk looking to make 30 bucks as a part time jihadi could plant a "conventional" IED in under a minute by burning a shallow pit in or by a road with battery acid, laying in a prefab IED (e.g. 120-155mm shell with washing machine timer and cellphone detonator duct taped to it) and covering it with trash.

[Apocalypse 31]

Technology is a beautiful thing

[Nidan1]

Playing politics with lives is a disgusting if time-tested activity.

Who would have thought that the armed forces would have to develop a new line of armored trucks? Why don't we just stay off the roads?

[ February 16, 2008, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: Nidan1 ]

[LongLeftFlank]

Staying off roads is far easier said than done, particularly in urban areas.

To prevent insurgent forces from seizing control of Iraqi cities and then needing to be blasted out Fallujah style, after 2004 the US established strong combat bases within major cities, particularly in Sunni areas. From these bases they could launch regular operations to contest insurgent control and, later, to protect/support local Iraqi allies.

These bases needed to be resupplied regularly by road (airlift is not an option). So protecting the supply (and patrol) routes, particularly in urban areas, became a major objective in itself. In Ramadi, Fallujah and elsewhere, US forces set up a chain of combat outposts (COP) along the MSRs to hinder the placement of IEDs and ambushes within their LOS. These posts themselves also needed resupply.

So regular supply convoys (Dagger runs) had to run along predictable routes, preferably wide highways or boulevards. And that's where AQI and its local stooges (largely not fanatics but unemployed men looking to make a few extra bucks as IED-layers) had a field day until the full time insurgents were progressively killed, turned in or run out of town (or went on the US payroll).

[Sitting Duck]

I'd hate to have to change that spare tire

[MikoyanPT]

Something i posted back in June 2007.

I would love to see MRAPS and logistical units in a add on.

Looks like the Vshaped hull vehicles, with better survival chances to mines and explosive devices are arriving to Iraq and Afghanistan in crescent numbers.

It would be nice to see them in CM.SF in a later add-on, It would be a change to the HUMVEE.

The vehicles arriving to the front line are the big BUFFALO

http://www.defense-update.com/products/b/buffalo.htm

From the same company the smaller Cougar

http://www.defense-update.com/products/c/cougar.htm

And the smaller size (kind of a hummvee) south african Nyala

http://www.defense-update.com/products/r/RG-31.htm

[Nidan1]

Originally posted by LongLeftFlank:

Staying off roads is far easier said than done, particularly in urban areas.

To prevent insurgent forces from seizing control of Iraqi cities and then needing to be blasted out Fallujah style, after 2004 the US established strong combat bases within major cities, particularly in Sunni areas. From these bases they could launch regular operations to contest insurgent control and, later, to protect/support local Iraqi allies.

These bases needed to be resupplied regularly by road (airlift is not an option). So protecting the supply (and patrol) routes, particularly in urban areas, became a major objective in itself. In Ramadi, Fallujah and elsewhere, US forces set up a chain of combat outposts (COP) along the MSRs to hinder the placement of IEDs and ambushes within their LOS. These posts themselves also needed resupply.

So regular supply convoys (Dagger runs) had to run along predictable routes, preferably wide highways or boulevards. And that's where AQI and its local stooges (largely not fanatics but unemployed men looking to make a few extra bucks as IED-layers) had a field day until the full time insurgents were progressively killed, turned in or run out of town (or went on the US payroll).

Thanks...so let me understand, US Combat Bases were established in or around cities and semi urban areas? Obviously the road nets become critical, what about helicopter re-supply? I suppose if that were the case we would be dealing with improvised anti-aircraft weapons instead of fixed explosive devises.

Its a constant game of cat and mouse...and I guess the key is getting the Iraqis up to speed as soon as possible so that they can do this stuff themselves.

[M1A1TC]

In Iraq currently are also these:

M-1117

MaxxPro

Cougar H

[FAI]

I don't know if introducing new equipment will matter much in the long run. The insurgents will simply re-adapt.

[LongLeftFlank]

The insurgents are certainly readapting, but they still won't be able to kill as many US soldiers with IEDs as they did in 2004-05 (and that was their main weapon, snipers being the other).

Unlike conventional IEDs which use the countless Saddam-era artillery rounds that lie all over Iraq, shaped charge IEDs have to be manufactured, and this (unlike detonators), isn't easy to do in a clandestine bomb factory (at least if you want it to defeat modern vehicle armour). Hence the US concern about such weapons being smuggled in from Iran and elsewhere.

Also, a shaped charge channels its armour-piercing blast in only one direction, so it needs to be emplaced and fired by a well trained operator, not some guy off the street. A 155 round IED can be laid flat in a shallow pit in the road. For a SCW, you'd either need a much deeper pit (which would take a long time and cover only a few feet of road) or else to plant it roadside and most likely above ground.

Roadside means (a) greater distance to target ( attacking side armour, not the underside. So you need a very powerful and well-designed shaped charge (not talking RPG round here), as well as a well-trained triggerman who knows EXACTLY which way the IED is pointing. You can still get all these things, of course, but it's harder, and more is likely to go awry.

So one would expect the success rates of IED attacks to drop off, and it seems they have. When they do hit right however, you get multiple US KIA, knocked out AFVs and spectacular headlines.

[Bigduke6]

Can these things drive on flat tires? What's their ability to negotiate a barrier or a hole? Like, a telephone pole? How good is the side armor against an RPG? I don't see any slats there. Can these things move as fast as a HUMMV?

Seems to me if you make the vehicle higher and heavier and larger, the insurgent solution is just to immobilize the vehicle and then blast it.

Roadside ambushes are not rocket science, and in general, it is alot easier to figure out ways to stop vehicles than it is to design a vehicle impervious to ambushes.

You want low casualties, stop patrolling. If you are going to patrol and there are people out there interested in killing your patrollers, chances are, they will. A few less less US servicemen dead won't affect the war effort, provided the will is there to accept the casualties.

If the insurgent-fighting side lacks the will to accept the casualties, then it is taking a pretty big risk fighting an insurgency, as people tend to die on both sides. Humans are clever and devious enough to figure out how to defeat a truck built to withstand the blast of a buried 152mm round.

After all, the insurgents didn't start out with 152mm rounds, they were using smaller stuff. It was the introduction of uparmored US vehicles that led to the widespread use of buried 152mm shells.

I don't think it's very likely that the insurgents, confronted by a vehicle designed to withstand 152mm shells, will stop thinking of ways to kill the foreigners riding around in the vehicles. And humans being what they are, odds are, they will not only find a way, they will do so quickly.

So pretty much a waste of money as far as I am concerned. If you think about the cost of replacing every HUMMV, it undoubtedly would be an awful lot cheaper to keep the HUMMVes, and spend the money saved on recruiting more soliders.

The net tactical effect, either way, would be the same, it seems to me.

[luderbamsen]

Hmm, that article sounds a bit like a round of the usual Blame Game to me: "Would have, could have, should have". Identifying issues in the procurement process is always a good idea, but laying the blame for dead Marines at the feet of the procurers is going a bit too far IMO.

The MRAP is a very mission-specific vehicle. It does what it does very well, but it only does that (protect from mines and ambushes).

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

re: 155mm Artillery round. I´ve always wondered: Shouldn´t the insurgents be running out of those? Even if there were many to begin with, we are in the 5th year of war now.

[mazex]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

So pretty much a waste of money as far as I am concerned. If you think about the cost of replacing every HUMMV, it undoubtedly would be an awful lot cheaper to keep the HUMMVes, and spend the money saved on recruiting more soliders.

The net tactical effect, either way, would be the same, it seems to me.

Well, you are obviously provoking for a cause, but still - reasoning like that you have to put a pricetag on a regular GI and put up a spreadsheet and see which solution is the winner... In that case, how about adding a column where you skip the humvee:s too? They cost a lot of money too and you could train more soldiers patrolling on foot for those dollars, making up for the losses. How about if you cut the training time. That must get you cheaper GI:s too, making the "patrol on foot" alterative even more interesting?

/Mazex

[BigDork]

These things are BIG. When I went to the DFAC (chow hall) here at Sather Airbase this morning to grab my dinner the Army guys had one parked across the street. These definitely don't look very sleek and mobile. But if I had to chose betweek taking a blast in one of these or in a humvee I'd chose the MRAP any day.

But that's just my uninformed Air Force opinion.

[Bigduke6]

Sounds good. Go down that road far enough, you might get the boots on the ground count high enough to supress the insurgency. But ya gotta be willing to have some of your soldiers die. It helps if you don't really mind.

The soldiers are willing of course, they volunteered, every one of them! The term "cannon fodder" didn't get invented by accident.

Yes I'm being provocative, but more soberly, a few guys doodling around in increasingly heavy and expensive vehicles, that ain't gonna cut it, not with an insurgency. Wringing hands and pointing fingers on whether or not a certain pointlessly expensive vehicle was or was not bought, is willful evasion of a discussion of what it takes to win a war.

A few less dead and injured soldiers for no strategic effect is all the vehicles get you. If the point is keeping the soldiers alive, get them out of the war.

If the point is winning the war, figure out how many soldiers you need and how many of them will die, and reconcile yourself to those realities.

Pretending you need less soldiers, or that the insurgents won't behave like insurgents, or that there are technological magic bullets out there suddenly changing the rules of how insurgencies are defeated, is pretending that does nothing - except get more soldiers killed and injured while the wonks take their time figuring out this latest expensive doodad, in fact, isn't supressing the insurgency.

[Londoner]

Big Duke,

Neither your sermon, or the nature of insurgency is new.

Just like any other human endeavour, we strive to do things better. Sure "the wonks" aren't always going to get it right but is that reason enough to stop trying?

To argue that we should just accept "the way things are" is ridiculously blinkered, and simply throwing boots at insurgencies is no guarantee for success!

Thank god everybody doesn't subscribe to your cock eyed ideology - we'd still be living in the stone age!

[Omenowl]

The beauty of living in a western nation is money is less important than the political backlash of deaths. Casualties are acceptable as long as progress is made and there are enough volunteers to fill their shoes. However, less deaths also mean a greater pool of volunteers. So reducing and limiting casualties is well worth it.

Personally, the biggest waste of money is super expensive fighter aircraft. Why not just swamp an opponent with cheap drones or use the money it for equipment for soldiers who are needed for peacekeeping/enforcement.

[Bigduke6]

Londoner,

Then it should be easy for you to explain to some one less enlightened than yourself how those big clumsy vehicles will win the war.

As to stone age ideology, and speaking of enlightenment, I always thought a measure of human progress has been the willingness, or no, of a given society to look facts in the face.

Here, what I primarily see is a wanna-be defense contractor putting dirt out in the media because he didn't get the sales to Uncle Sam he wanted. I think the lost profit is much more important to the contractor, than the lost lives.

But if you see things different, hey, it costs nothing to post your opinion.

Originally posted by Londoner:

Big Duke,

Neither your sermon, or the nature of insurgency is new.

Just like any other human endeavour, we strive to do things better. Sure "the wonks" aren't always going to get it right but is that reason enough to stop trying?

To argue that we should just accept "the way things are" is ridiculously blinkered, and simply throwing boots at insurgencies is no guarantee for success!

Thank god everybody doesn't subscribe to your cock eyed ideology - we'd still be living in the stone age!

[Lethaface]

I must agree, altough partially, with BigDuke here.

China or Russia would care much less about the loss of a life, since their public opinions are different (or not of any influence to government policies).

So, to be true, MRAP's are not going to win a war. However, they might lower casualties on US side give the way THEY want to win 'their' war.

Looking at history, I agree with some not to be mentioned theories. ENSLAVE, EXTERMINATE or SUPPRESS. Thats the only way you're going to get a countries population on its knees. The U.S. doctrine about fighting insurgents is still non-existent. There are so many theories about the 4th way of fighting wars, however u want to call it; fighting against guerilla's. Till now I didn't see any way to. Except, There is the old Dutch way (or spanish, or German, or Serbian, Allied, or whatever) to just massacre that $#*&^!@&*$ people that keep sitting in your way. Just shoot them, kill their families, lock em up, burn em to death, whatever as long as the (few, if any) survivors are frightened enough to Get the hell out of there or dance to your music, your fine. With U.S.'s agenda, thats not possible. This is not about winning a war in Iraq, my friends....(no need to get in that discussion here )

If there would be a war in Iraq, why not just CarpetClusterBomb Baghdad?

Thats what would be happening if there was a war. There is NO war. I wouldnt be surprised if this whole Iraq thing is just a equipment test being in coordination with various other aspects of USA's Strategic agenda. Now I dont want to hurt any1 here, especially not US citizens or Military personel, this is just my opinion about the ones in the USA that are holding the strings. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I even forgot my point here :S

AH, there it is. If you want the least possible casualties among your own troops; Build a BIG wall, patrol only with Abrams Tanks, Shoot a canister shell at any thing that moves, etc etc.

If u just want to drive safely through a dangerous place without having to burn it down, an MRAP will do better then a Humvee. So, after all, i dont agree with BigDuke, partially atleast. Now where is that bottle o' wine ??? :S

[Londoner]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

Londoner,

Then it should be easy for you to explain to some one less enlightened than yourself how those big clumsy vehicles will win the war.

As to stone age ideology, and speaking of enlightenment, I always thought a measure of human progress has been the willingness, or no, of a given society to look facts in the face.

Here, what I primarily see is a wanna-be defense contractor putting dirt out in the media because he didn't get the sales to Uncle Sam he wanted. I think the lost profit is much more important to the contractor, than the lost lives.

But if you see things different, hey, it costs nothing to post your opinion.

Mr D,

I don't know enough about the American military-industral complex to have an informed opinion on the financial considerations behind these vehicles, but obviously no single weapon system or piece of equipment is going to win a war or insurgency. However there's arguably a market for specialised vehicles, taliored to the specific threats of insurgency/stability/peackeeping type operations.

It's big - so what, visibility must be great! Profile size is hardly important, it won't be laying ambushes or hiding from hostile air. It's clumsy/boxy looking, and? It's not likely to face high velocity rounds. Why should the aesthetics matter anyway? Are you a modeller?

RE Enlightenment/human progress. Isn't it mainly about embracing change? Something we all find particularly difficult to do.

Regarding your rather odd casualty argument, even if we leave the ethics aside and just think purely about money, even if the US had the stomach for significant casualties, what is the economic cost? For every young man killed how many will never be in full time employment again? As far as I know the US military actually take pretty good care of their wounded, how much would all the pensions, long term care and the double hit of the resultant loss of taxpayers cost?

[LongLeftFlank]

The only real fundamental is that the insurgents simply cannot win unless the US government declares defeat and withdraws US forces.

And while the majority of Iraqis certainly have no love for US occupation (and nor would I in their place), the untrained masses now have very little ability to do anything about it without risking martyrdom (for which few have any more stomach than you or I). It was child's play -- literally! -- to plant and even trigger an IED before, and risks were minimal so long as an American wasn't watching.

The uparmouring of the supply vehicles, once the US military's Achilles heel, means that future attacks on them will need to be emplaced and fired in person by trained and motivated insurgents using more sophisticated weapons. Of both of these there is a more limited supply.

I'm not saying that all this wins the war in the forseeable future, or that the insurgents won't figure out some other way of killing "white meat" for the evening news (mortar attacks? more suicide vests? fifth columnists within the IAF?).

But one once easy tactic has now become ineffective and must be replaced with riskier action. And under such circumstances, eventually insurgencies do in fact run out of active adherents (AQI has lately begun recruiting children, never a healthy sign for such movements). Particularly true when the mainstream economy is otherwise slowly improving and the US is still throwing cash around. This is true even in the Shia areas.