U.S. suffers first death in new armored truck

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military has suffered a first fatality in one of a new fleet of heavily armored vehicles designed to protect soldiers from roadside bombs, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

One soldier died and three were wounded when a deeply buried bomb went off under the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, or MRAP, truck near Arab Jabour on Baghdad's southern outskirts on Saturday, officials said.

But the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has made buying MRAPs and shipping them to Iraq a top priority, retained confidence in the vehicles.

Commanders believed the three wounded soldiers would not have escaped life-threatening injuries if they had been in a less armored vehicle, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said.

"Secretary Gates is not questioning the protection provided by MRAPs," Morrell said at the Pentagon. "He is in fact more convinced than ever that these vehicles do indeed save lives."

Morrell said the dead soldier was the first to be killed in an attack on an MRAP since Gates early last year ordered a special program to produce the vehicles and rush them to Iraq.

The powerful blast did not penetrate the crew cabin but threw the vehicle into the air and caused it to overturn, Morrell said. The soldier killed in the attack was a gunner, who was in a more exposed position on top of the truck.

"We're trying to determine now whether or not the force of the blast is what claimed his life (or) whether the rollover itself took his life," Morrell said.

The U.S. military has about 1,500 of the vehicles operating in Iraq, reducing its reliance on the less well-protected Humvee military vehicles.

MRAPs generally feature a raised, V-shaped hull and amour plating designed to protect troops inside by deflecting blasts from roadside bombs and mines away from the vehicle.

Roadside bombs are by far the biggest killers of U.S. troops in Iraq.

A total of 3,929 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

The Pentagon had originally planned to ship 2,500 to 3,000 of the vehicles to Iraq by the end of 2007 but cut that number to 1,500 due to the amount of time needed to ship the large trucks, which can weigh up to 18 tonnes.

A total of about 8,800 MRAPs have been ordered by the Pentagon at a cost of more than $12 billion.

Much bigger than flat-bottomed Humvees, MRAPS can carry 6-10 soldiers.

MRAP contractors include:

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

-- Force Protection Inc., which is partnered with General Dynamics Corp. 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 Paul Tait in Baghdad and Andrew Gray in Washington)