Joe Biden: “I want to explain briefly what this amendment does. It adds $23.6 billion to allow the Army to replace all of its…”

“I want to explain briefly what this amendment does. It adds $23.6 billion to allow the Army to replace all of its up-armored HMMWVs with mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, the so-called MRAPs. It also adds a billion dollars to increase the cost of the 8,000 MRAPs we are trying to purchase today. In terms of the specifics of this amendment, the idea is simple. If we can prevent two-thirds or more of our casualties with a vehicle that is basically a modified and armored truck, we have to do all in our power to do it, in my view. Last, it provides $400 million for better protection against explosively formed penetrators or EFPs. These are those shaped-charges that hit our vehicles from the side and are increasingly deadly. I want to be straight with my colleagues. This is a very expensive amendment. Twenty-five billion dollars is a lot of money. But compared to saving the lives and limbs of American soldiers and marines, it is cheap. Our commanders in the field tell us that MRAPs will reduce casualties by 67 to 80 percent. The lead commander on the ground in Iraq, LTG Ray Odierno, told us months ago that he wanted to replace every Army up-armored HMMWV in Iraq with an MRAP. Instead of adjusting the requirement immediately, the Pentagon has taken its time to study this issue and just recently they have agreed that the general needs a little over half of what he asked for. 10,000 instead of approximately 18,000. This makes no sense.”