We’ve been following for a while now the effort to deploy some 4,100 mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles to Iraq by the end of this year. The Army and Marines only have a couple hundred of the vehicles–which feature a v-shaped hull designed to deflect the force of an IED blast as well as substantially stronger armor than the up-armored Humvee–in Iraq at the moment, but the Navy is currently evaluating nine commercially available MRAPs for the contract. Megan Scully, writing at National Journal, has the story on a Marine Corps request for an additional $2.7 billion in funding to purchase 2,700 more MRAPs in FY 2008. That request was not included in the Bush administration’s budget proposal: