In a bid to increase the number of blast-proof trucks fielded to U.S. troops in Iraq, the Pentagon yesterday opened the competition to build Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles to at least 14 new companies -- including foreign concerns -- asking for proposals for a new version of the vehicle, MRAP II, capable of stopping explosively formed penetrators. With four of the nine original companies participating in the first round of MRAP competition effectively eliminated from the current sequence of...
