Almost two years into this mess...

AP

With no sign of the Iraq insurgency ending soon, the Army has again raised its goal for replacing regular Humvee utility vehicles in Iraq with armored Humvees, the Army's top civilian official said Friday.

Les Brownlee, the acting secretary of the Army, said in an Associated Press interview that the Army recently doubled its requirement for "up-armored" Humvees in Iraq from 4,000 to 8,000.

Brownlee said that at the current production rate of 450 a month he believed the Army could meet the goal of having 8,000 armored Humvees in Iraq by March 2005. He did not say how many already are there, but he said the goal of 4,000 was met in September.

In May 2003, after the fall of Baghdad but before it was clear to U.S. officials that an insurgency was developing, the Army had 235 armored Humvees in the country and they were being produced at a rate of 15 per month, Brownlee said. By September the requirement was raised to 1,000.

Brownlee said the Army also is adding armor to its truck fleet because soldiers in supply convoys are often attacked by insurgents.

He said this was an illustration of how much more deadly the insurgency has proven to be than anyone in Washington believed possible in 2003.

"No one ever anticipated we'd be up-armoring our truck fleet," he said. "Nobody anticipated that we'd have to do that." [hmm.imagine that. Better lat than never.]

Global Security says, by their count U.S. wounded stands at : 22,005

Dead: 1,175 (38 so far this month)