Army orders increase in armor production

WASHINGTON -- The Army yesterday ordered the main supplier of armored Humvees to ramp up production from 450 to 550 vehicles per month after coming under intense criticism in recent days that it has not utilized all its manufacturing capacity to protect soldiers in Iraq from roadside bombs.

After meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- who faced tough questioning from troops on Wednesday about the lack of armored vehicles in Iraq -- Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey called the CEO of Armor Holdings in Jacksonville, Fla., and asked the company to increase production as soon as it can.

Harvey, who has been on the job for just a month, also established an Armor Task Force that officials said will review all of the current contracts for armor plating for Humvees and all heavy and medium-weight trucks to see whether production can be increased further.

Meanwhile, officials said, the Army also ordered its Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois to go on 24-hour work shifts to speed up production of armor plates for the truck fleet, which is more vulnerable than Humvees to the roadside bombs that have bedeviled US troops in Iraq for months.

''We wanted a happy ending to this before the weekend," said a senior Army official who asked not to be identified and was involved in yesterday's discussions between Army and company leaders. The Army official said the Pentagon will pay for the increase in Humvee production with money already appropriated.

Congress appropriated $1.2 billion to purchase armor for soldiers and vehicles last August, but much of it has been held while the Pentagon decided how many armored vehicles were necessary. Officials at the Tank-Automotive Command in Warren, Mich., which purchases wheeled vehicles for all the military services, have been engaged in an ongoing assessment of future needs, and further increases in production were on hold until the completion of their assessment.

The Pentagon was put on the defensive this week after a soldier in Kuwait, Specialist Thomas Wilson, questioned Rumsfeld about why his Tennessee National Guard unit has been forced to scrounge for steel plates and bulletproof glass from local landfills to bolt onto their vehicles before heading north to Iraq for a yearlong tour.

Rumsfeld replied that the Army was doing everything possible to get Humvees and other heavier trucks equipped with some level of armor protection.

But Armor Holdings told the Globe on Thursday that it had notified the Army as far back as September that it could produce at least 100 more armored Humvees per month and that the Army had not yet requested the additional production.

Last night, Armor Holdings released a statement saying it would increase production to 550 vehicles per month, adding, ''We expect to achieve this rate of production by no later than the February/March time frame without any significant changes to our infrastructure. During the interim period, we will continue to build as many vehicles as possible, as we have done to date. In fact, we are currently ahead of the Army's production schedule by more than 330 total vehicles."

US Central Command, responsible for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, is short by more than 2,000 armored Humvees, while almost half of the 28,982 vehicles that can be armored are not, according to internal Pentagon documents obtained by the Globe yesterday.

Before the Iraq war, only Humvees used by military police were provided with extra armor. But as attacks have increased, the army has adapted with varying levels of armor for all of its vehicles.

Lawmakers yesterday continued to express outrage at delays in getting the necessary equipment to the front lines, even though the money has already been appropriated. They demanded to know why the Army has not moved more quickly to get needed enhancements to troops in Iraq -- especially members of the Guard and Reserve who often operate older equipment not designed for use in a combat zone.

''While the Department of Defense has increased procurement of these items, it has not come close to taxing the production capability of the industry," said Representative Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri, in a letter to President Bush. ''Why isn't all of the available industrial capacity being used? How are we energizing the industrial base to provide armor for the full range of ground vehicles in the theater?"

During his presidential campaign against Bush, Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, criticized the administration for not providing enough protection for troops in Iraq. Yesterday he sent a letter urging Rumsfeld to begin immediately increasing production and consider tapping new firms to help increase the output, including Protective Armored Systems and Foster-Miller, both situated in Massachusetts.

''In the last two days, Armor Holdings, Inc. stated it is capable of immediately expanding its production by 22 percent," Kerry said. ''ArmorWorks has indicated they are only at 50 percent of capacity in their manufacturing of armor kits." AM General in Ohio, which manufactures the vehicles and ships them to Armor Holdings for armor upgrades, ''also indicated it had excess production capacity."

Kerry added: ''We must never spare any expense when it comes to the lives and safety of our troops."

Others said the shortfall of sufficient armor protection underscored Congress's lack of oversight of the Iraq war and called for immediate hearings on Capitol Hill to assess troop safety.

''We believe that field hearings, private meetings with troops where they are free to share their views, and investigative work by committee staff would all help the Armed Services Committee do a better job of overseeing the DoD," three Democratic members of Congress, Martin T. Meehan of Lowell, Ellen Tauscher of California, and Kendrick Meek of Florida, wrote in a letter to the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Representative Duncan Hunter of California.

The failure to ramp up production of armored vehicles is emblematic of a larger problem in the Pentagon, according to officials and analysts: a maze of bureaucracy and inertia that has limited the military's ability to adapt to the security situation in Iraq.

Providing enough protective armor for vehicles and soldiers ''have been problems for many years, dating back before the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts," said Christopher Hellman, military policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington. ''They reflect the inertia symptomatic of most large bureaucracies, the Pentagon even more so than most."

''They focus a little on a lot of things," said Michael Fox, a spokesman for Armor Holdings, referring to the delay in approving more purchase orders.

The Army's decision yesterday was welcome news for critics of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war.

It's a very welcome decision," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. ''Specialist Wilson deserves a medal for shaking the Pentagon tree so effectively and producing this long-needed increase so quickly."

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.