Humvee moves over for hulking, tough MRAP

By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Within weeks, the Army will buy its last Humvee — its workhorse truck since the 1980s but a "death trap" in modern warfare — and drive soldiers to war in vehicles with better armor.

The Army plans to buy about 2,600 more Humvees to fill out its requirement of about 150,000. But those vehicles will be confined primarily to bases in war zones, relief missions in safer parts of the world and on Army posts, said Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, an Army spokesman.

For battlefield commanders, the Humvee is "not the vehicle of choice" for troops in combat, Maj. Gen. Thomas Spoehr said in testimony he submitted recently to Congress. "For example, commanders in Afghanistan are relying more heavily on their fleets of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles."

Commanders prefer MRAPs because troops are much more likely to survive a blast from an improvised explosive device than they are in a Humvee. Last summer, they had proved to be "tens of times safer" than other vehicles in a bomb attack, according to the Joint IED Defeat Organization. The Pentagon is rushing a new all-terrain version of the vehicle to Afghanistan that is designed for its rugged terrain. There are about 1,000 of those vehicles in Afghanistan.

"The single-biggest reason for the demise of the Humvee was that it was never designed for the level of force protection that we feel we must have," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute, which receives funding from the defense industry. "America is facing a range of enemies we never thought we were going to have to deal with. They use cellphones to detonate roadside bombs."

Army and Marine Corps commanders have known of the vehicle's vulnerability since a 1994 report, following the U.S. mission to Somalia, and said that even Humvees retrofitted with armor could be a "death trap" in a blast. The Humvee's primary problem, a 2008 Pentagon inspector general's report said, was its "flat bottom, low weight, low ground clearance and aluminum body." Those factors make the Humvees vulnerable to IEDs, especially those buried in roads.

Insurgents in Iraq attacked that weakness relentlessly. The result: IED blasts became the top killer of U.S. troops.

In 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made fielding MRAPs a top priority for the Pentagon. Since then, 12,000 of the trucks have been shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan. The truck's raised chassis and V-shaped hull help protect troops from bombs buried in roads.

"Commanders consistently report that MRAPs, with their V-shaped hulls and added armored protection, are saving lives and reducing casualties," Spoehr said in his testimony.

By September, the Pentagon expects to have 5,250 all-terrain MRAPs in Afghanistan, Spoehr said. The Army expects to buy its last new Humvee in April.

Humvees won't soon rust and fade away, however. The Army's still buying spare parts and refurbishing them, Cummings said. And Marine Corps Commandant James Conway said late last year that the Marines are exploring ways to retrofit them with V-shaped hulls.

Military ruling offers 'closure' for family of brain-dead troops

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Family members of combat troops declared brain-dead will have an opportunity for a final reunion with their loved ones before life support is removed, according to new guidelines provided to battlefield doctors.

The guidelines are aimed at helping doctors determine what to do when a combat casualty suffers brain death, a decision physicians were left to figure out before on a case-by-case basis.

Moving brain-dead troops to more advanced military hospitals, such as those in Europe or the United States, will also make it possible to harvest organs for transplants, the guidelines say.

The recommendations were issued last week by the military's Joint Theater Trauma System, which provides medical research and guidance for battlefield care.

Though the situations are rare, they pose "the most challenging of clinical and ethical management dilemmas" of military medicine, the guidelines say.

"I'm actually surprised that there wasn't one of these (guideline recommendations) sooner," says retired Army colonel John Holcomb, a trauma surgeon who faced cases like these in Iraq in 2006. "It's not easy. There's nothing easy about it."

Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, about 175 troops with catastrophic head injuries have been evacuated from the war zones only to die later of their wounds, says Army Col. Brian Eastridge, director of the Joint Theater Trauma System. Doctors in combat operations are not required to obtain permission from next of kin before removing a brain-dead patient from life support, Eastridge says.

As a result, battlefield doctors have often struggled with whether to do this, says Air Force Col. Warren Dorlac, former director of trauma care in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Military doctors and officials say family inclusion is essential.

"The guys in the theater, the guys taking care of these patients, realize that it's not only the soldier that's sacrificed here, it's the family," says Dorlac, who helped develop the new guidelines. "We need to treat not just the soldier, but the whole family as well."

That's why, Eastridge says, officials are trying to be "as aggressive as possible to get guys back, even if it's just for closure with their families."

The new guidelines are designed to help military doctors who lack experience in such catastrophic cases, particularly those in which roadside bombs cause devastating wounds, Eastridge says.

Transporting brain-dead troops is not meant to interfere with other medical needs, the guidelines say. If combat doctors are in a mass-casualty crisis, they are urged to use medical resources and air evacuation slots for patients who are likely to survive.

Families have told military doctors they appreciate the chance to reunite with their fatally wounded servicemember, Dorlac says. "They've turned to us and said, 'Hey, we appreciate the extra effort that you guys have made to try to get them back here so we can visit with them one more time,' " he says.

IED attacks in Afghanistan more lethal

By Deshakalyan Chowdury, AFP/Getty Images

By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Attacks on U.S. and allied forces with makeshift bombs in Afghanistan are 50% more lethal than three years ago, reflecting insurgents' use of more powerful explosives and the increased vulnerability of troops who patrol more on foot than in the past.

Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Defeat Organization, told a House subcommittee that the casualty rate was "disturbing" and half that of troops hit by IEDs in Iraq.

Overall, IED attacks have doubled over the past year in Afghanistan, Oates said. It was even worse when comparing February 2010 with February 2009, attributed in part to a Marine-led offensive in the town of Marjah in Helmand province. This year, insurgents planted 721 bombs compared with 291 last year. Those attacks killed or wounded 204 troops this February compared with 51 in February 2009.

Oates cited several advantages Afghan insurgents had over U.S. forces:

• Reliance on fertilizer-based explosives that lack metal components frustrates attempts to detect buried bombs.

• U.S. forces traveling in heavy vehicles are forced to travel on the few improved roads in Afghanistan, making them easier targets. "This facilitates a successful enemy tactic of emplacing large explosive charges buried in the middle of the road or in culverts," Oates said.

• The counterinsurgency strategy pushed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal stresses protecting Afghan civilians and requires troops to be in close contact with them. The downside, Oates said, is that "separated from the protection of an armored vehicle, they are also more vulnerable to casualty from an IED."

Oates, in a USA TODAY interview, said winning the trust of Afghans will ultimately provide the best protection for U.S. troops. Afghans will identify insurgents and provide tips on where they have planted bombs.

Oates said the military will focus on fielding new all-terrain Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles designed specifically to protect troops in Afghanistan. Surveillance aircraft will monitor roads, troops will be trained to find and defuse bombs, and the networks that produce IEDs will be attacked. "There is no silver bullet," he said.

Top military brass to hear review of 'mentors' program

By Tom Vanden Brook and Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates' top deputy will brief the Joint Chiefs of Staff today on his recommendations to regulate the Pentagon's practice of hiring retired senior officers to advise the military, Gates' spokesman said.

Gates ordered Deputy Secretary William Lynn in December to review the military's practice of paying retired officers hundreds of dollars an hour to act as "senior mentors," helping run war games and advising active-duty officers.

Lynn has completed the review and will present his recommendations to Gates, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the chiefs of the military services, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

Gates was responding to a USA TODAY investigation, which reported that most of the mentors had ties to defense contractors and that there were few ethics rules governing potential conflicts of interest. The newspaper reported that some mentors were earning more as advisers than they did as active-duty generals, even as they collected six-figure pensions and consulted with defense companies seeking Pentagon contracts.

In the months leading up to the review, Gates has expressed concern about mentors' pay, which can reach $486 an hour. Mullen said in November that mentors must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat whose subcommittee is investigating military mentors, told Gates in November that there must be public disclosure of mentors' outside interests.

Public disclosure is essential, said Mandy Smithberger, national security investigator for the Project On Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog group.

"Any time you're talking about someone who might have a significant potential financial conflict of interest, you have to have sunshine there in order to eradicate it," she said.

However, many Pentagon advisers do not have to file public financial-disclosure forms. For example, unpaid advisers, such as those working on a study of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, file disclosures that are reserved for a closed-door inspection by Pentagon lawyers.

Secret financial-disclosure forms "would not be consistent with the other open-government initiatives of the Obama administration," Smithberger said.

Some mentors are concerned any new rules would require too much information about their business relationships or place too low a cap on how much money they can be paid as government advisers, Gregory "Speedy" Martin, a retired Air Force general and senior mentor, said in an e-mail.

"Keeping (defense) consulting separate from mentoring is important, and we probably need to make the rules much more visible and appropriately restrictive," Martin said. "But I would caution against making them so exclusive that we imply retired flag officers are not trustworthy."

USA TODAY found that of the 158 retired generals and admirals identified as mentors, 80% had financial ties to defense contractors, including 29 who were full-time executives of defense companies. The retired officers, hired as contractors, have not been subject to the ethics rules that would apply if they were brought in as part-time federal employees. They have not had to disclose, to the military or the public, their ties to defense contractors.