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Iraq
Armor is on way to Iraq
Associated Press
Published January 12, 2006
WASHINGTON - The Army plans to send thousands of ceramic body armor plates to Iraq this year to better protect soldiers while the Marine Corps already is delivering such gear, military officers said Wednesday.
In a private appearance before members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the officers defended the body armor available to U.S. troops. A Pentagon study done last summer but only disclosed recently found that improved armor may have prevented or minimized torso wounds that proved fatal to Marines in Iraq.
The committee chairman, Sen. John Warner, said he was satisfied the military was ensuring that U.S. troops had adequate body armor.
But some Democrats urged more congressional oversight.
The unreleased study that prompted the briefing was done last summer by the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner. It looked at 93 fatal wounds from the start of the war in March 2003 through June 2005. The study found that of 39 fatal torso wounds in which the bullet or shrapnel entered the Marine's body outside of the ceramic armor plate that protects the chest and back, 31 were close to the plate's edge.
[Last modified January 12, 2006, 01:26:11]
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