WASHINGTON DC – The Pentagon declared that mine-resistant vehicles supplied to Kurdish Peshmerga forces provide “significant” protection, after a US television channel reported they lack side armor and that riding them was “suicide.”
Early this year, Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters that some 200 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, or MRAPs, had been delivered to the Iraqi government, which Washington insists on using as the conduit for arms to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
He said the supplied MRAPs were “excess US vehicles.”
On Thursday, Pentagon spokesperson Cmdr. Elissa Smith told Rudaw that the vehicles in use with Kurdish forces provide protection against different threats, including improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that are frequently used by the Islamic State group (ISIS or ISIL) for attacks on military convoys.
“The MRAP vehicles in question provided to the KRG are exactly the same configuration provided for the Iraqi Army,” she said.
“The vehicle, as configured, provides a significant amount of armored protection both against mine and IED threats, as well as against small arms, heavy machine guns and a number of other battlefield threats,” she said in an email, responding to questions by Rudaw.
But US channel Fox News reported this week that MRAPs provided to the Pershmerga lack side armor, making them vulnerable to attacks by rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and similar weapons.
The channel quoted Phil Hudicourt, a former member of the Army Special Forces, as saying MRAPs without armor plates are “dangerous,” and that the decision to supply them that way was a “stupid” one.
"The military calls it an 'RPG magnet'," he said. "I don't know what level it was made, if it was made at a low level, high level, but it's a pretty stupid decision. Because riding in those MRAPs with all the amount of RPG 29s in the country is committing suicide."
Photographs of MRAPs deployed with the Kurdish forces in Kirkuk and other areas show that the vehicles are without side armor.
Hudicourt said that US personnels dont ride the MRAPs in Kurdistan Region due to high risk and lower safety standard.
Fox said that US feared that the armor technology might fall into the hands of the Iranians if the MRAPs equipped with it.
Smith, the Pentagon spokesperson, said: “We understand that the Peshmerga and other Iraqi Security forces are effectively employing these vehicles in operations against ISIL.”
Her assertion came as the KRG’s Peshmerga ministry announced its latest casualty toll, saying that 1,300 Peshmerga soldiers have been killed since the start of the war with ISIS in August last year.
The militants inflicted heavy casualties on Kurdish forces in the first months of the war with car- and truck-bomb attacks around Kirkuk and Mosul.
Kurdish military officials say that, out of 250 MRAPs provided to the Iraqi army, the Kurds have received only 30. They say that at least 400 MRAPs are needed by the Peshmerga to effectively bring down casualties and deal with ISIS threats.
There was no immediate comment about the Fox News report from Kurdish military officials contacted by Rudaw.
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