WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2007 – The Defense Department has let contracts for an additional 2,400 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, bringing the total number of the vehicles ordered to 8,800. “We’re going to do everything we can to get as many vehicles in theater as fast as we can,” a senior Pentagon official, speaking on background, said yesterday. The MRAP is designed to survive blasts from improvised explosive devices and armor-piercing IEDs known as explosively formed penetrators or projectiles, the main killers of American servicemembers in Iraq. The vehicles have a V-shaped hull that deflects shrapnel, providing more effective protection for...