Pentagon Study Links Fatalities to Body Armor (click on)
A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.
The ceramic plates in vests now worn by the majority of troops in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck the marines' shoulders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach.
Thirty-one of the deadly wounds struck the chest or back so close to the plates that simply enlarging the existing shields "would have had the potential to alter the fatal outcome," according to the study, which was obtained by The New York Times.
Inferior body armor for American soldiers
An article on how and why American soldiers do not have the best possible armor:
When O'Brien welcomed Second Chance into its burgeoning company Sept. 2 he neglected to mention that Second Chance was desperately in need of a second chance because the company and its former officers are currently under investigation by the Justice Department for fraud for knowingly selling body armor that can't stop bullets from killing its wearers.
Prosecutors in Washington presented evidence September 25, 2005 showing that Second Chance was alerted as early as 1998 by the Japanese material maker Toyobo Co., that there were problems with a material called Zylon, that primary component of Second Chance's "bullet-proof" vests. Toyobo sold the material to Second Chance. Toyobo officials told Second Chance scientists that the protective properties of Zylon deteriorated under certain conditions. The problems came to light the same year after a California police officer was shot and killed while wearing a Second Chance vest, court records show.
U.S. Troops in Iraq Have Limited Body Armor (click on)
WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense has provided thousands of top-of-the-line protective vests to coalition forces on the ground while some U.S. troops in Iraq have been asked to take their chances with inferior flak jackets, sources told Foxnews.com.
The American military has certified the use of body armor that can stop rounds from a Kalashnikov rifle, a 9-millimeter handgun and fragments from a grenade. The material used is lightweight and not too restrictive. So far, more than two dozen soldiers in Afghanistan credit the vests with saving their lives.
The only problem with the life-saving equipment is getting hold of it.
Congress has allocated funds for all U.S. troops to wear 16-pound, ceramic-plated Interceptor body armor (search), but as many as 51,000 American soldiers and civilian administrators in Iraq have not yet been equipped with the gear, and have been asking friends and families at home to purchase and send them off-the-shelf models for protection.
Many Missteps Tied to Delay Of Armor to Protect Soldiers (click on)
By Michael Moss
The war in Iraq was hardly a month old in April 2003 when an Army general in charge of equipping soldiers with protective gear threw the brakes on buying bulletproof vests.
The general, Richard A. Cody, who led a Pentagon group called the Army Strategic Planning Board, had been told by supply chiefs that the combat troops already had all the armor they needed, according to Army officials and records from the board's meetings. Some 50,000 other American soldiers, who were not on the front lines of battle, could do without.
In the following weeks, as Iraqi snipers and suicide bombers stepped up deadly attacks, often directed at those very soldiers behind the front lines, General Cody realized the Army's mistake and did an about-face. On May 15, 2003, he ordered the budget office to buy all the bulletproof vests it could, according to an Army report. He would give one to every soldier, ''regardless of duty position.''
But the delays were only beginning. The initial misstep, as well as other previously undisclosed problems, show that the Pentagon's difficulties in shielding troops and their vehicles with armor have been far more extensive and intractable than officials have acknowledged, according to government officials, contractors and Defense Department records.
