Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles

The military has decided to put a huge emphasis on getting as many MRAPs out to the troops in Iraq as quickly as possible according to a story in USA today.

And what you may ask are MRAPs they are Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. These are to replace the humvee. This from the article:

The Joint Requirement Oversight Council, a group of top Pentagon officers, accepted the Army's recommendation to make a "one for one" swap of MRAPs for armored Humvees in most cases, said Col. Steve Sliwa, chief of the Army's future war-fighting capabilities division.

That recommendation followed a visit to Iraq by a high-level Army team to assess soldiers' needs and which vehicles would best fill them.

"We're going to aggressively pursue maxing out production, definitely for '08," Sliwa said. "We're extensively testing the vehicle to ensure the soldier's very well protected."

The MRAP is the same vehicle that I referred to as the cougar in a post back in March. The question is why it took so long for such a suggestion to be made in the first place.