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Highway bill passes while Marines roll in 33-year-old death traps
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By Christopher Holton
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, August 11, 2005
On the 10th of August President Bush signed a huge highway bill that
critics charge is laden with "pork" for members of Congress to send
back to their districts and states.
Hopefully, this 1000-page bill will help make it easier for Americans
to walk, bike and drive to work, home and on vacation and other
recreational outings.
But don’t count on it. Fully 9 percent or $24 billion, of the bill will go
specifically toward over 6,000 "earmarked" special projects at the
request of our shameless politicians in Washington. Among the "vital"
projects in this gargantuan bill pointed out courtesy of the Heritage
Foundation, the Cato Institute and Taxpayers for Common Sense are:
$3 billion to expand walking and bicycle trails nationwide
$200,000 for a deer avoidance system in Weedsport, New York
$480,000 for a "historic" warehouse on the Erie Canal
$3 million for dust mitigation on Arkansas rural roads
$2.3 million for landscaping the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California
(the Gipper must he shaking his head over this one)
$231 million for a bridge named after Alaska Congressman Don Young,
who just happens to be chairman of the Transportation Committee
$3 million for the National Packard Museum in Ohio
$25 million for a bridge in South Carolina that even the Governor of
that state says is not needed
$1.5 million for a bus stop in Anchorage, Alaska
$1.5 million for the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan
$14 million for a Children’s Museum in Indianapolis
$125 million for a bridge in an Alaskan town of just 8,000 people
$2 million for a garage on Lipscomb University campus in Nashville
$4 million for a graffiti elimination program in Brooklyn and Queens
$500,000 for sidewalks and landscaping in Glenville, Georgia
$1.5 million for horse trails in High Knob, Virginia
$850,000 for a bike path in Hattiesburg, Mississippi
$2 million for a parking lot in Bozeman, Montanna
$25 million for bike trails in Minneapolis
Meanwhile, our Marines in Iraq have a different kind of transportation
problem. They are riding around in thin-skinned vehicles known as
amtracs—vehicles that have proven on two deadly occasions to be
vulnerable to rocket propelled grenades and land mines. This
amtrac—short for amphibious tractor—is properly known as the AAV7, or
amphibious assault vehicle.
The AAV-7 was first fielded in 1972. The amtracs Marines are using in
Iraq today are older than the overwhelming majority of the officers and
enlisted Marines riding in them.
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The aging AAV7.
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The amtrac was designed to transport Marines from ships offshore to the
beach in amphibious assaults. It was not designed for extended inland
operations such as the campaign in Iraq, yet it has performed well in
this latest unexpected role. But warfare has transformed in the last
decade and the AAV7 is outmoded. It offers little if any protection
from the ubiquitous rocket propelled grenade and without add-on armor,
it even is vulnerable to heavy machine gun fire. With the add-on armor,
its suspension is overstressed causing maintenance headaches and
breakdowns.
The Good News: The EFV
The good news is that the Marine Corps has had the foresight to develop
a transformational replacement for the AAV7. The new vehicle is known
as the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV). The EFV is superior to the
AAV7 in all aspects: mobility, firepower, armor protection,
survivability and maintainability.
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The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV)
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Whereas the AAV7 is armed with a .50 caliber machine gun and a 40mm
grenade launcher, the EFV’s primary weapon is a 30mm cannon capable of
defeating the armor of any infantry fighting vehicle in the world.
While the AAV7 is vulnerable to RPGs, the armor on the EFV is hardened
against RPGs, and 14.5mm armor piercing rounds (out to 300 meters) and
fragments from 155mm artillery shells as well. The EFV will be equipped
with special mine-blast protected seats, something that would certainly
be useful in Iraq. Moreover, the EFV has a lower silhouette than the
AAV7, making it harder to target with rockets. With all these
improvements, the EFV also brings better mobility to the table. It is
capable of keeping pace with the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank on land
and, while the AAV7 can "swim" at just 7.5mph in an amphibious assault,
the EFV can "swim" at 25mph.
Just as important, the EFV will have a built-in system providing
protection to both its 3-man crew and up to 18 troops against Nuclear,
Biological and Chemical agents.
The Bad News: Budget Cuts
As unbelievable as this may sound in time of war—and at a time that the
federal government has earmarked $286 billion to a highway bill—the EFV
has been the victim of budget cuts. The EFV was originally supposed to
begin entering service in 2008, but budget cuts mandated by the Office
of Management and Budget (OMB) have pushed this back to 2010. Marines
are riding around in Iraq in an old, vulnerable vehicle and
pencil-pushers in Washington have pushed a replacement back 2 years for
purely budgetary reasons. Worse yet, the latest round of cuts also
called for reducing the number of EFVs to be procured by some 200
vehicles from the original requirement of 1,013.
The total cost of one EFV is currently estimated at $7 million, or, by
my calculation, the equivalent of four and a half bus stops in Alaska.
For 1,000 vehicles, the cost would come to $7 billion, which is less
than 1/3 of the amount spent on pork in the highway bill.
The OMB should be embarrassed and our politicians in Washington should
be ashamed. They are willing to put young Marines’ lives at risk, but
they cannot bring themselves to part with their pork-barrel spending
projects.
Christopher Holton has been writing on strategic, military and economic issues for over 12 years. He can be contacted at prgraph3@bellsouth.net.
Copyright © 2005 East West
Services, Inc.
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