The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have raged on respectively since 2001 and 2003 have cost more than 5,100 U.S. troops their lives. Seventy-five percent of those deaths were because of improvised explosive devices or IEDs. That's according to Congress' investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, in a new study that notes it was only 2007 that the Defense Department began to make widely available vehicles that are highly protected against explosions.

In the two years since that time, the military has procured so-called MRAPs (mine resistant ambush protected vehicles) that are considered better protected than Humvees at rapid pace. The $27.7 billion price tag for 16,000 MRAPs has been justified as a way to save lives.

And military agencies aim to procure more.

MRAPs had been in use by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps as early as 2003, according to GlobalSecurity.org. But they were available "in very limited numbers and for specialized missions, such as explosive ordnance destruction and other rout clearance work. These vehicles quickly gained a reputation for providing superior protection for their crews..."

In 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged support for the vehicles: "The companies that have been awarded the MRAP contracts are ramping up their production capabilities," he said. "I am pressing them very hard to see where they can cut the time scale as well as increase their production ... You have to look outside the normal bureaucratic way of doing things and so does industry – because lives are at stake."

--

Photo: U.S. Air Force airmen load a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle onto a C-5 Galaxy aircraft/via Defense Department