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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President
For Immediate Release October 1, 2012


REMARKS BY VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN
TO THE MINE-RESISTANT AMBUSH PROTECTED VEHICLES PROGRAM
TRANSITION CEREMONY

The Pentagon

1:28 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Deputy Secretary Carter, thank you very much. Mr. Schaffer, the whole MRAP team, and I want to particularly thank the defense contractors. Some of you had to greet me early on and tell me what you needed, and assured me that it all could get done so I could go back to the Senate and convince them that this made a lot of sense to spend this money. And I also want to thank you for inviting me on this occasion.

The remarkable leadership you all demonstrated here in making sure that our women and men who were deployed had the best equipment and the technology this nation could provide, and protect them, must give you all -- I hope it gives you all a sense of satisfaction today. And it's a genuine honor to be with you.

And let me start by saying congratulations to the Joint MRAP Program. The team did an incredible job. And I have been around for eight Presidents, and I know it's not easy to push something this big through this system, this fast. But you all did it. And in the process, you've saved an awful lot of lives, you've protected an awful lot of our sons and daughters who fought in Iraq, and as Ash pointed out, are still, as we speak, fighting in Afghanistan.

And selfishly, as a father, I want you to know I felt a hell of a lot better, as the General can tell you, knowing -- and General O can tell you -- knowing that when my son was in theater in Iraq, that MRAPs were available.

I remember back in 2006, I was reminiscing with Ash on the way in, and I had made one of my -- turned out to be multiple trips before and since to Afghanistan and "the Battle of Fallujah" had been "concluded." And I went to meet with the Marine Commanding Lieutenant General in his headquarters, and about 30 of his commanders and noncommissioned officers to get briefed on the state of play.

And they took me outside afterwards, and they were talking about these IEDs and how this had become such a serious problem. They took me out front, and there was this behemoth of a vehicle sitting there, and they said it was impacting positively on reducing the casualty rate they had in patrolling Fallujah, and that it was saving a lot of their troops. And they showed me what, at the time, they called a buffalo -- it was, as you all know but the press may not, a big vehicle like a Caterpillar bulldozer with a long arm used to disarm IEDs, and a V-shaped hull that looked like a ship out of water.

And I remember them saying to me, why can't we build these kind of vehicles? And they talked about the fact that the South Africans had vehicles, and others had vehicles like this. And there was no formal petition, but it was -- everyone from the noncommissioned officers who were showing me around to the Marine General were -- why don't we do more of this? And they didn't know an MRAP at the time, but they knew that we needed something drastically different.

It's a mine-resistant vehicle with a V-shaped hull that diffuses the force of an explosion, offering much greater protection than the up-armored Humvees our soldiers and Marines were riding around in at that time.

And you've heard me say it before, and I know you all agree with it: This country has many obligations. This government has many obligations. But it only has one truly sacred obligation. It has obligations to our children, to the elderly; it has the obligation to protect our streets. But it only has one truly sacred obligation, and that's to equip and protect those who we send to war and care for those who we bring home from war. It's the only truly sacred obligation a government has.

So five years ago, when all the statistics started rolling out about 70 percent of our -- those killed in action were killed or wounded in action as a consequence of IEDs, and that we knew -- or at least someone knew how to build a vehicle to provide them four or five -- depending on the studies you have, up to eight times as much protection as the up-armored Humvees they were riding around in.

And if you excuse what we used to say in the Senate, a point of personal privilege -- I don't know whether she's here today, but someone who is an unsung hero here is a woman named Erin Logan. Erin, are you here? Erin, stand up. Now, I want you tell you where -- Erin worked for me. She now works for you, Mr. Secretary. (Laughter.) But she worked for me in the Senate, and she is brilliant and tenacious. She was the person whom the "whistleblower" came to for me to focus on the request that had been sent in -- the dimensions, the specifications, et cetera -- even though I was being told no, there was no such request that had come forward. And Erin was like a bulldog. It's a matter of individuals being able to make a difference. She would not let go. She would not let go.

And what none of you, knowing it, and not any of us could live with, was with Americans being in a situation where they were coming home in flag-draped coffins or coming home literally missing body parts or severe brain trauma when there was at least more than a potential solution out there.

So on March 28th, 2007, we were debating this issue on the floor -- getting considerable pushback, I might add, on the floor from Democrats and Republicans as what Erin had put together for me with my staff was a proposal to give life to the request that had been formally made by others within the Pentagon and a lot of folks in the field. And I stood on the floor, and it was clear I didn't have the votes. So I called -- I got on the phone and I called -- I don't think he's here today -- Marine Corps General James Conway. He's not here today, is he?

Well, let me tell you something, he deserves a whole lot of credit. Everyone was saying generically nice things about it. I got him on the floor -- I put my lapel mic down, went and called him from the Democratic cloakroom, and I said, General, I understand you are committed to this MRAP program. And he said to me -- he said, it's the highest moral imperative I have as the Commandant of the Marine Corps. I said, would you repeat that again? He said, it's the highest moral imperative I have as the Commandant of the Marine Corps. My kids are getting killed.

I said, can I say that? Can I walk out on the floor of the United States Senate, in taking on pro-defense -- this is where this -- this was not a case where it was a bunch of liberals opposing and a bunch of pro-defense conservatives. It was not getting support from the committees. And he said, yes, you can. I quoted him, and that turned the tide. That turned the tide. It wasn't a hundred to nothing vote at the end of the day. There were a lot of other priorities people had. They couldn't understand how we could spend this much money on programs.

I had arguments made like -- I remember -- I will not name the senator saying, look, we're not going to need all these when these wars are over, so it's going to be waste of money.

I said, can you imagine Franklin Roosevelt being told we need X number of landing craft on D-Day, but once we land, we're not going to need them all again, so why build them? (Laughter.) I'm serious. Those of you who were involved know what the arguments were. They were the arguments being made by intelligent people.

But when Bob Gates got engaged, when Bob Gates got all this information, when Bob Gates saw the stuff the whistleblower was pushing out there, everything changed. Everything changed.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't say personally I want to thank -- I want to thank -- General Conway. And I also want to thank Ray Odierno. I shouldn't call him Ray. He's become a good friend, but General Odierno, who asked for 18,000, which sort of knocked everybody's socks off, when that was the case to protect our troops and made an ardent case why they were needed.

Our mission, your mission became crystal clear, although I still marvel at how you got it done. To forward-fund MRAP production was my responsibility, to get people to vote to do that -- forward-fund MRAP production lines so we get the lines going. You guys were saying to me, don't ask me to go ahead and change my lines here -- when I went down to South Carolina -- unless I know you're going to build these things. We can do it. We can do it. But there was no forward funding at the time.

And everybody stepped up, and it was in large part because of Bob Gates and Ray and a lot of you in this room who were pushing the case why it was possible, even in difficult economic times.

And as I point out, not everyone -- not everyone was on board, but we voted, and we won. And I would be remiss if I didn't also thank names that people don't remember, maybe, but there was a representative named Gene Taylor in the House and Senator Kit Bond, the Republican leader on the other side. And they stepped up, taking on their own, just like I was taking on some of my own team -- taking on their team, and they stood fast, and they did not yield.

And so we were approved over $23 billion to get the MRAP production lines rolling. We got our troops the vehicles -- you got our troops the vehicles they badly needed, and we listened to troops in the field asking for a vehicle that could protect them. And we'd been hearing it for the previous four years, and you all ignored the skeptics.

I used to hear, Joe, we don't have the money. MRAPs won't get the job done. You can't make these vehicles fast enough anyway, Joe. And thank God none of you bought it. None of you bought any of that. And you bet on what our top military officers were telling you, and we bet on what you were telling the military; and that is we put our faith in American manufacturers being able to ramp up the production lines because we did -- and because they delivered and sent more than 24,000 MRAPs to our soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen in the field a heck of a lot sooner instead of forcing them to wait for the new vehicle.

Remember what the alternative was -- everybody forgets this -- the alternative was, there's a new vehicle in five years. There was a new vehicle. That was the biggest argument used against my initiative. No, no, no, Biden, you're screwing things up. You're going to take a chance on this other thing you're going to try to build now. You're not -- they're not going to be able to do it well. They're not going to know what to do, and you're really going to step all over us having a vehicle that can really matter. That was the big argument.

But I just came to thank you guys personally and you women personally because you didn't buy it. So what did we get for the effort? Well, we got a whole lot of young women and men coming home in one piece.

When we started the MRAP push over five years ago, MRAPs were a lower a priority you remember than Humvees and way lower than the new five-year program of this new vehicle we were going to produce. We were told we can't build them fast enough, so why go spend the money. We were told that we shouldn't wait -- we should wait until manufacturers ramp up their production lines first before we commit to forward-funding MRAPs, expecting companies to make an investment on their own without contracts or anybody who would buy them.

If we accepted that status quo back then -- I just want to remind you, if we had not made this a top -- you had not made this a top priority and committed upfront funding to buy MRAPs, our troops would be just receiving their first Humvee replacements now, assuming that we got that done.

And that would have meant years of higher casualty rates, years of a lot more of our troops coming home in flag-draped coffins. If they were lucky enough to survive a blast they came home without limbs, traumatic brain injury, amputations. Instead, because of the extraordinary efforts -- and I'm not being solicitous -- the extraordinary efforts of you people sitting before me, you saved thousands of American lives.

I know all the statistics. I'm not going to quote -- there's different studies, whether it's three to four times safer or nine times safer; whether you save 40,000 forces or 15,000 forces -- it is unmistakable -- it is unmistakable what you all did.

First time after the first MRAP was deployed, General, to a place you spent an awful lot of time in Iraq, you all flew me out to Fallujah. There was a meeting with the Sons of Iraq and the sheiks and the time. And a lieutenant general asked me whether I'd come four streets over -- and you guys provided a lot of protection to get me over there -- and I met with a group of I think the highest-ranking officer besides the lieutenant general who took me over was a colonel, then a captain, and then six non-commissioned officers. And they showed me a photograph of just earlier, about three days earlier, a 300-pound IED had hit an MRAP and blown it so high in the air -- you all know that stats, but the press may not -- literally ripped the telephone wires. The wheels got caught on the telephone wires. That's how high up it was blown in the air. They showed me and had marked out on the road where the various parts of the vehicle were -- the axles, the -- just spread within probably, I'm guessing, an area as big as this room. But -- but the hull of the ship, so to speak, was in place. Everyone survived. Nobody died. And I'm going to back to my vehicle, which was a Humvee in a ride back to the center. (Laughter.) Hey, look, senators and vice presidents are expendable, man. (Laughter.)

But, seriously, going back -- and I go to get into this Humvee and this kid -- not a kid; I shouldn't say kid -- he was a master sergeant, and he had a chest about -- his neck was as big as my thighs, and he saluted me and he said, sir. And I said, how are you, sergeant? And he waited till we got around the side of the vehicle, and he threw his arms around me and he filled up and he said, "thank you, you saved my" -- I won't say exactly what he said -- (laughter) -- but you saved my life, you saved my life.

You all have had since that day. I'll bet every one of you in this program has had one or two or five. I can count probably over 40 young women and men -- two women -- who have approached me in hospitals in the field and said thank you. I can't think of any greater satisfaction for playing a little, little, tiny part in this process. And all the credit goes to all of you who made this work so fast, so well, and so consequential.

And I was told last week -- Ash and my national security advisor, Tony Blinken, were over at -- visiting wounded warriors, and one kid told you -- he said, thank you. Your MRAP saved my life twice. So this is real, man. This is real. An awful lot of husbands, wives, moms and dads, brothers and sisters wish they could be here now to do what that master sergeant did with me -- throw their arms around you and say thank you -- thank you for saving the life of their kid.

That's the legacy left by this office -- thousands of American lives saved, helped saved. And you're still saving lives of the 68,000 kids we've got -- not kids -- 68,000 soldiers we've got deployed in Afghanistan. They're better protected because there's 12,000 MRAPs in the country. And you altered them, you varied them, you made them adaptable. So you are among an awful lot of unsung heroes.

And so folks, I just want to conclude by telling you all that there has been a few things in my 36 years as a senator that I've been involved in and been able to play a little part in. But there's -- this is one of two that I know because of what the outcome was I don't have to wonder about whether it mattered. I don't have to wonder about what we did mattered. And I'm sure none of you have to wonder.

Because it just hasn't saved American lives. When I'm -- I've had the honor of being able to travel 600,000 miles overseas since being Vice President, just since Vice President -- back in theater a number of times -- I get the same from our coalition partners. The same thing from our coalition partners who we've either loaned, sold or provided surplus MRAPs operating in Afghanistan now. So for helping our country fulfill that sacred obligation to equip those we send into battle with the MRAPS they needed, thank you.

And on behalf, as I said, of the moms and dads, the brothers and sisters, parents whose sons and daughters were deployed, I can't thank you enough, because so many are home. So many are home because of what you guys in industry did; you did it so rapidly. What you did in changing the way the culture of any big organization to get it done.

And I am pleased to know that that culture is now being inculcated in what you're doing from here, because the needs are going to be different, but just as vital. It's going to require the similar kinds of breakthroughs over the next 20 years.

So, again, it's an honor to be with you, and it's an honor to have witnessed what you've done for so many Americans.

God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you.

END 1:48 P.M. EDT