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MRAPs going to Iraq on Russian cargo planes

The Air Force has been forced to use Russian commercial cargo jets to rush Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles from the U.S. to Iraq because it does not have enough C-5 and C-17 planes to do the job, the service’s top civilian official said recently.

Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday that American reliance on Russian Antonov jumbo jets to move critical war supplies indicates that the Air Force may need more than its current 300 C-5s and C-17s.

“We are now sharing the mission of flying MRAPs over to Iraq between C-17s and Antonov airplanes,” Wynne said. “Did [we] truly envision that we would fly war supplies with Russian-made airplanes? I don’t know.”

MRAP vehicles are the Defense Department’s top procurement priority, and the department this month ordered an additional 2,400 to help protect American servicemembers from roadside bombs in Iraq. The department has said it needs 15,274 MRAPs for all the services.

Wynne said the U.S. military has used the enormous Antonov planes to transport more than 200,000 pounds of cargo to Iraq.

Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J., said he was unaware that the Antonov airplanes are being used so extensively in the war effort.

The Russian-made Antonov An-124 is 25 percent larger than the C-5, the Air Force’s largest cargo plane. The AN-24 is operated primarily by Russian and Ukrainian freight companies, according to the Web site, Airliners.net.