Senate approves $23.6 bln for MRAPS for Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Monday approved $23.6 billion in additional funding for mine-resistant armored vehicles as part of a mammoth defense spending bill for the 2008 fiscal year that began Monday.

The bill passed by a vote of 92 to 3 and now heads into conference negotiations with the House of Representatives.

As written by the Senate Armed Services Committee, the $648 billion bill already included $4.1 billion for Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, whose V-shaped hulls can dramatically reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs.

But senators approved an amendment by Sen. Joe Biden, a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, that adds $23.6 billion in funding for the vehicles.

That funding level would allow the U.S. Army to replace all of its up-armored humvees in Iraq with MRAPs, Biden said.

He said roadside bombs are responsible for 70 percent of U.S. troop deaths in Iraq, and MRAPs could reduce those deaths by more than two-thirds.

"We have no higher obligation than to protect those we send to the front lines," Biden said in a statement. "While we argue in Washington about the best course of action in Iraq, our troops on the ground face improvised explosive devices, rocket propelled grenades, explosively formed penetrators, sniper fire, and suicide bombers every day."

The Pentagon has already funded or requested 8,000 MRAPs, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week asked for $11 billion more to expand MRAP purchases.

MRAPS can hold four to twelve people and their hulls protect soldiers better from explosions than up-armored humvees.

Lawmakers from the Senate and House of Representatives will now enter into negotiations to iron out differences between the two bills.

For instance, the Senate added $115 million to the Army's request of $3.7 billion for its Future Combat Systems modernization program, while the House cut the program's funding by $867 million.

The Senate policy bill authorizes the money to be spent, but the Pentagon will have to wait until Congress passes a separate appropriations bill before war funds are transferred to military coffers.

MRAP contractors include:

-- Navistar International Corp.'s International Military and Government LLC;

-- Force Protection Inc., which is partnered with General Dynamics Corp.'s Land Systems business arm;

-- a General Dynamics Canadian unit;

-- BAE Systems Plc;

-- Oshkosh Truck Corp.;

-- closely held Protected Vehicles Inc. of North Charleston, South Carolina;

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa)