Free Republic

In recent weeks, the Army has ratcheted up its public relations machine touting the merits of its latest combat toy being deployed in Iraq, the $3 million-plus per copy wheeled armored vehicle known as the Stryker. With the insurgency’s offensive heating up recently in Mosul, Iraq, the Stryker is seeing some action and it’s obviously become tougher to keep the 300 or so Stryker armored vehicles out of harms way. Case in point: Two Army soldiers were killed on Dec. 4 when their Stryker “received enemy fire during convoy operations.” (There have been no details released yet by the Department...

"The Army's new car is a lemon." That's how former U.S. Treasury fraud investigator and Special Forces trooper Lonnie Shoultz describes the U.S. Army's newest armored vehicle, the Stryker. Worse, he says, it is becoming an expensive lemon. Shoultz, a Vietnam combat veteran with the 101st Airborne Division and former Green Beret, as well as an experienced government fraud investigator, has long been vocal in his criticism of the Stryker, as well as the process the Army used to procure it. He's not alone in his assessment. Other military analysts and experts have also come out against the implementation of...

The U.S. Army's newest armored vehicle, the Stryker, is plagued with problems and fraught with dangers for crewmen, say military watchdogs and other organizations who have examined the wheeled vehicle's performance record. Also, critics and analysts have questioned the Defense Department's procurement of the vehicle as well as the Pentagon's decision to build it, adding the military has ignored warnings about the Stryker's perceived vulnerability and overall survivability in combat. According to an analysis by the Project On Government Oversight, or POGO, one of the Pentagon's own testing officials sent the defense agency a letter warning the $3 million-per-copy Stryker...

With new focus on the revolving door between the Pentagon and defense contractors, another case deserves further scrutiny: The January 2000 hiring of former Army Lt. General David K. Heebner by General Dynamics Corp., and the subsequent award 11 months later of a $4 billion contract to General Dynamics to build the Army's Stryker Interim Armored Vehicle. POGO has learned that the Pentagon's top independent tester warned the Secretary of the Army that the vehicle should not be deployed in Iraq because it is vulnerable to rocket propelled grenades. As one of Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki's top...