[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING TERRORISM: INDIVIDUAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT FOR U.S. FORCES,
INVENTORY AND QUALITY CONTROLS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 21, 2000
__________
Serial No. 106-222
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
---------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
72-288 WASHINGTON : 2001
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For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
Lisa Smith Arafune, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida TOM LANTOS, California
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
JOHN L. MICA, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
Carolina BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
LEE TERRY, Nebraska (Independent)
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
R. Nicholas Palarino, Senior Policy Analyst
Jason Chung, Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 21, 2000.................................... 1
Statement of:
Johnson-Winegar, Anna, Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of
Defense, Chemical-Biological Defense, Department of
Defense; Major General John Sylvester, Deputy Chief of
Staff for Training, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine
Command, Department of Defense; Major General Earnest
Robbins, the Civil Engineer, Headquarters U.S. Air Force,
Department of Defense; Rear Admiral David M. Stone, Deputy
Director, Surface Warfare Division, U.S. Navy, Department
of Defense; and Major General Paul M. Lee, Jr., Commander,
Marine Corps Materiel Command, Department of Defense....... 89
Mancuso, Donald, Deputy Inspector General, U.S. Department of
Defense, accompanied by Robert Lieberman, Assistant
Inspector General; Eleanor A. Wills, project manager; Carol
L. Levy, Deputy Director; and Susan T. Lynn, resident agent
in charge, New York Resident Agency, Defense Criminal
Investigative Service...................................... 10
Mongeon, Brigadier General Daniel G., Commander, Defense
Supply Center Philadelphia, accompanied by George Allen,
Deputy Commander, Defense Supply Center Philadelphia; and
Robert Kinney, Director, Individual Protection Directorate,
Natick Soldier Center, U.S. Army Soldier and Biological
Chemical Command........................................... 59
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Biggert, Hon. Judy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Illinois, prepared statement of................... 6
Johnson-Winegar, Anna, Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of
Defense, Chemical-Biological Defense, Department of
Defense, prepared statement of............................. 91
Kinney, Robert, Director, Individual Protection Directorate,
Natick Soldier Center, U.S. Army Soldier and Biological
Chemical Command, prepared statement of.................... 72
Lee, Major General Paul M., Jr., Commander, Marine Corps
Materiel Command, Department of Defense, prepared statement
of......................................................... 126
Mancuso, Donald, Deputy Inspector General, U.S. Department of
Defense, prepared statement of............................. 15
Mongeon, Brigadier General Daniel G., Commander, Defense
Supply Center Philadelphia, prepared statement of.......... 61
Robbins, Major General Earnest, the Civil Engineer,
Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense,
prepared statement of...................................... 108
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 3
Stone, Rear Admiral David M., Deputy Director, Surface
Warfare Division, U.S. Navy, Department of Defense,
prepared statement of...................................... 119
Sylvester, Major General John, Deputy Chief of Staff for
Training, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command,
Department of Defense, prepared statement of............... 97
COMBATING TERRORISM: INDIVIDUAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT FOR U.S. FORCES,
INVENTORY AND QUALITY CONTROLS
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans
Affairs, and International Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher
Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Shays, Mica, Sanford, Biggert, and
Schakowsky.
Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and
counsel; Nicholas Palarino, senior policy adviser; Jason Chung,
clerk; Robert Newman and Thomas Costa, professional staff
members; David Rapallo, minority counsel; and Earley Green,
minority assistant clerk.
Mr. Shays. I call this hearing to order. Welcome our
witnesses, welcome our guests.
When deploying United States forces confronted the threat
of chemical and biological weapons in the Persian gulf war,
they did so with inadequate protective gear, insufficient
training, unreliable detectors and the haphazard use of
vaccines and other medical countermeasures.
In 1996, the General Accounting Office [GAO], concluded,
that ``equipment, training and medical problems persist'' and
were ``likely to result in needless casualties and degradation
of U.S. warfighting capability.'' GAO noted that despite,
``increased emphasis on chemical and biological defense, it
continued to receive a lower level of emphasis at all levels of
command than other tasks,'' and many field commanders had
accepted a level of chemical and biological unpreparedness as
an operational and fiscal given.
So we continue our oversight of the chemical and biological
defense program with these questions. Is the readiness of
individual protective equipment a military priority today?
Having placed top-level emphasis on the need for the anthrax
vaccine, so-called ``medical body armor,'' against one agent,
has the Department of Defense [DOD], been as attentive to the
need for reliable masks and suits that protect against all
toxins and agents?
According to the DOD Inspector General, serious problems
continue to plague the Pentagon approach to individual
protective equipment. In short, DOD may not be able to find
enough protective clothing when it's needed on the battlefield,
and too many protective masks may not work when they get there.
Despite unequivocal findings and recommendations by the IG,
these issues have been consigned to years of bureaucratic
quibbling and buck-passing within DOD.
On November 2, 1994, the Inspector General recommended
cyclic testing of all masks to address reported degradation of
effectiveness over time in the field. Five years later, the
joint service integration group found critical defects in more
than half of 19,000 masks tested. But the DOD official in
charge of the overall chemical and biological defense program
says maintenance problems with field masks are the
responsibility of the service branches. As of today, with the
exception of the Marine Corps, the services have not undertaken
the recommended mask surveillance and testing.
In 1996, the IG cited the Defense Logistics Agency [DLA],
for weak inventory management controls over protective suits. A
1998 consolidation of depots storing protective suits only made
matters worse. The practical impact of those weaknesses became
all too clear when DLA tried to recall 700,000 suits supplied
by a fraudulent vendor. Although long suspect, potentially
defective suits have not been segregated from other inventory;
it took DLA three times to find all the suits, some of which
had been shipped, by then, to units in high-threat areas,
contrary to previous DOD claims.
If the availability and reliability of individual
protective equipment were a military priority, these problems
would have been addressed as quickly and as effectively as DOD
fixes a rifle that overheats or an ammunitions shortage. The
persistence and extent of protective mask failures suggest the
problem and the solution go beyond training and maintenance by
individual service members. Had the services not spent 6 years
in denial, a technological or materiel solution could have been
programmed to reduce required mask maintenance and made it
rugged enough for battle.
The threat of chemical and biological warfare is real and
it is changing. U.S. forces must be protected to the maximum
extent possible from a broad and growing list of toxins and
agents. In terms of individual protection, only high-quality
masks and suits will do that job. The current system of
chemical and biological defense appears too willing to tolerate
preventable equipment failures.
At this time, I'd be happy to call on my colleague from
Illinois, Judy Biggert.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to
welcome those of you in uniform and thank you for the service
to our country.
Certainly, a strong national defense is essential. A strong
national defense is the protector of freedom and the guarantor
of our foreign policy. But if our country is to remain strong
and relevant in the 21st century, we must ensure that America's
armed services are never second best. To do that, we must
ensure that our military personnel have the best, the safest
and the most up-to-date equipment in the world.
Despite the best intentions of our military, various
reports indicate that, in some instances, our soldiers in the
field are receiving defective or outdated equipment, namely,
chemical protective suits. In fact, the Army recently found
thousands of those defective suits stockpiled in Europe and
Korea.
Besides the defective suits, reports authored by the
Department of Defense Inspector General show that the chemical
protective masks also suffer major and critical defects. Should
this equipment ever be used in defending against a chemical or
biological attack our troops, would be at risk for illness,
incapacitation or death.
Almost as troubling has been the DOD's response to this
information. It has been slow to implement actions recommended
by the IG to correct the problems relating to the management,
distribution and use of protective equipment.
I'm not really here today to question the integrity or
dedication of those who supply and train our military forces.
In fact, I can say with much confidence that it's due to their
efforts that the United States has had the best-equipped and
best-primed military in the world. I'm also aware that the
Department of Defense feels that U.S. forces are fully prepared
to survive, fight and win a biological and chemical battle
environment, and this is the reason we are gathered here today.
Today's hearing presents the DOD with a strong opportunity
to address the concerns that have been raised. So I'm eager to
hear from the witnesses, and I also want to know if the
soldiers in the field are aware of potential problems with this
equipment or have reported faulty gear to the commanders.
And finally, I trust that we will hear if the Department is
following through with the IG's recommendations for improving
inventory management, and I'm particularly anxious to know the
extent to which the IG feels that fraud and abuse have
permeated these permanent programs.
So again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for calling this
important oversight hearing and I look forward to working with
you and the individuals testifying today, and my colleagues, to
strengthen the military as well as to ensure its effectiveness
in the post-cold war era. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Judy Biggert follows:]
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Mr. Shays. I thank the lady.
Our first panel is Mr. Don Mancuso, who is Deputy Inspector
General, Office of the Inspector General, Department of
Defense, accompanied by Mr. Robert Lieberman, Assistant
Inspector General, and Ms. Carol L. Levy, Deputy Director,
Defense Criminal Investigative Service, also of the Office of
the IG. And what we will do first, let me just get rid of some
housekeeping.
I ask unanimous consent that all members of the
subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the
record and that the record remain open for 3 days for that
purpose. Without objection, so ordered.
I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be
permitted to include their written statements in the record;
and without objection, so ordered.
At this time, I would welcome the three of you. And let me
ask you, Mr. Mancuso, is there anyone else that might be
providing information who should stand and be sworn in, or is
it just the three of you for this panel?
Mr. Mancuso. We have two individuals that we may turn to.
Mr. Shays. So I'd ask them to stand and be sworn in, and
then if they're asked to respond to any question, we don't have
to give it again and then they can give their name to the
transcriber.
So if you five would stand, please.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. For the record, all responded in the
affirmative. Thank you.
I just welcome Ms. Schakowsky from Illinois.
And, Mr. Mancuso, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to
give you 5 minutes. Then we're going to roll it over for
another 5 minutes and ask you to conclude in 10 if you can.
STATEMENTS OF DONALD MANCUSO, DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT LIEBERMAN,
ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL; ELEANOR A. WILLS, PROJECT MANAGER;
CAROL L. LEVY, DEPUTY DIRECTOR; AND SUSAN T. LYNN, RESIDENT
AGENT IN CHARGE, NEW YORK RESIDENT AGENCY, DEFENSE CRIMINAL
INVESTIGATIVE SERVICE
Mr. Mancuso. I will certainly try to do that, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for
the opportunity to appear before your subcommittee today. The
Inspector General's Office shares your concerns with respect to
the Department's inventories, quality controls and
serviceability of equipment intended to protect our military
forces from chemical and biological attacks. As you requested,
I'll briefly summarize our efforts with respect to five audit
reports and a criminal investigation involving chemical warfare
suits and masks. My written statement contains considerable
detail on each of these items.
Let me begin by discussing our work on inventory management
of chemical protective suits. In 1996, we conducted an audit of
inventory records at the Defense Depot in Columbus, OH, and I
would mention that on an annual basis as part of our financial
statement audits we look at inventory, and it was during the
course of such an audit that we had occasion to look at the
inventory in Columbus.
We selected 44 different types of items from a universe of
about 268,000 different types of items that are maintained in
that location in order to determine whether the inventory
records matched the actual count that we would have observed as
part of our audit. The 44 items included six types of chemical
protective suits. Although the depot listed more than 2.1
million such suits in our sample, the physical count identified
major discrepancies; 400,000 fewer suits were on hand than
reflected in the inventory records for locations listed as
storing such suits. Conversely, we found nearly 700,000
additional suits not listed on the inventory records that were
stored in undocumented locations.
Now I'll take a minute, Mr. Chairman, if you would, to
explain that--a little bit because, to the layman, it doesn't
appear to make much sense. The depots maintained by the Defense
Logistics Agency--and there are approximately 20 of them--
contain a huge amount of materiel, and for that reason, it's
extraordinarily important that they know exactly what they have
there and where it should be located. They are hundreds of
thousands of actual locations that are supposed to be very
specifically marked, so that when they look in the inventory
and they say they have 50,000 suits in location whatever, in
fact those suits are there.
And what we found is that many of the suits that were
listed on inventories as belonging in a particular location did
not exist in those locations; but after a more careful look
around the depot, other suits were found that were in other
undocumented locations.
Since suits are such a critical war reserve item and the
supply community must be able to respond rapidly and
efficiently to requests for protective suits, we were quite
surprised at the discrepancies that we found. Because these
suits have a specified shelf life and require periodic
inspections we had expected much-better-than-average controls.
Instead, we found a series of poor inventory management
practices.
In response to our audit, the Defense Logistics Agency took
action to regain inventory control for these suits. They
advised us that all the suits had been located, inventoried and
posted to inventory records by November 1997 and later
transferred to the Defense Depot in Albany, GA. In 1999,
however, we had occasion to conduct an audit, an inventory
audit, at the Albany depot; and we discovered that instead of
improving inventory management, the transfer to Albany had the
opposite effect.
The records for the one type of suit we audited were
materially inaccurate. We also determined that during the
transfer to Albany, the quantity of each of the 20 different
types of protective suits on hand was never verified. As a
result, we requested that the DLA conduct a wall-to-wall suit
inventory. The DLA has notified us that that inventory is
complete, and they'll be reporting out with a final report very
shortly.
During the audit, the auditors also determined that DLA had
failed to alert all DOD users and had failed to segregate suits
under contract from a company, called Isratex, where the
contractor was under criminal investigation and we had found
defects in these suits. That particular case was begun in 1993
by our investigative staff, the Defense Criminal Investigative
Service. They initiated an investigation of this company,
Isratex, and a facility the company had in Puerto Rico for the
company's production of coveralls and coats for the Department
of Defense; and what the investigation uncovered is that the
company was routinely substituting poor and inferior-quality
items for those that had been previously presented to the
quality inspectors for their review.
In 1994, late 1994, the investigators also began to look at
another Isratex facility in West Virginia, and that facility
was producing chemical warfare suits; and in short order, we
found the same types of deficiencies, because the same scheme--
relatively the same scheme--was being perpetrated by Isratex at
the West Virginia location, and it involved chemical warfare
suits. To put it in perspective, Isratex at that time had two
contracts to produce nearly 800,000 suits for the Department of
Defense at a cost of approximately $50 million.
I'd also point out--and I'm a career criminal
investigator--I have seen this scheme all too often, especially
in the Department of Defense, although it certainly occurs
anywhere in government where large volumes of materiel are
purchased. In this case, the company repeatedly presented high-
quality, good items to the government inspector who accepted
those items and, therefore, accepted the lot for shipment. The
company then apparently removed those items, held them back--in
this case, we call them special lots--and intentionally shipped
off inferior quality goods with many, many serious defects.
This type of scheme, as I said, occurs fairly frequently,
and frankly over the last 15 years, we've probably prosecuted a
few hundred contractors involved in this same type of scheme.
In this case, though, the investigators, with the cooperation
of the DLA quality inspectors, went into the company--this is--
again, I'm talking about the Puerto Rico end of it right now--
and marked some of these goods that were being presented for
inspection. They surreptitiously marked them, so that they
could be traced through the inventory chain, and sure enough,
we found that the good items did not make it through the
inventory chain, and again the low-quality items were being
substituted. This, together with other evidence and witness
testimony, resulted in the indictment and subsequent conviction
of the company, its principal officers and several of its
employees.
Beginning in 1995, relating to this matter, we began a
series of discussions and correspondence with DLA relative to
the defects that we uncovered with the chemical warfare suits.
Nonetheless, the suits remained in inventory. We were able,
after some negotiation, to have DLA remove the suits under the
second contract--the 1992 contract, which was the smaller
contract--from inventory, and those items were actually
segregated in approximately July 1995.
DLA was reluctant to segregate the 1989 contract items.
They weren't the specific target of our investigation nor were
they eventually the specific items used to support the
indictment. The DLA cited cost and other factors such as
readiness factors, as reasons for not removing those suits from
inventory. We also asked that they make proper notification to
the units to whom defective suit potentially have been issued.
Nonetheless, the 1989 suits remained in inventory. This is
particularly troubling due to the serious nature of the
defects, which included holes and open seams. DLA eventually
made full notification to all users, involving all the suits,
earlier this year and advised us, as of last month, that the
1989 contract suits have been fully segregated.
I'd add that much can and has been said as to the failure
to take prompt and aggressive action in this case. Issues such
as the cost of segregation, testing, perceived seriousness of
the defects and the obvious impact on readiness have all been
discussed and debated within the Department. I'd be remiss,
however, if I didn't put it in some perspective for you. Again,
having investigated and supervised this type of investigation
over the years, I have worked extensively with DLA and have had
occasion to turn to them frequently for help in segregating
items or in conducting testing; and although this is an
egregious situation as far as I'm concerned in the system, I
would note that in the vast majority of instances, right up
through today, DLA is quick to give assistance, is quick to
support us with testing, is quick to segregate the items that
we need for evidence. So I'm hopeful that we'll continue to be
able to work with them to preclude a situation like this from
reoccurring.
Let me now turn to the topic of chemical masks and
specifically to our 1994 and 1998 audit reports. Our 1994 work
was completed in response to defense hotline allegations that
related to the design, production serviceability and integrity
of chemical protective masks. Inasmuch----
Mr. Shays. You have another 5 minutes.
Mr. Mancuso. I can finish in that amount of time, sir.
Inasmuch as the 1994 reports are classified secret, they
were classified by the Department, I'll be limited in the
detail that I include in this open hearing.
Mr. Shays. This is on the 1994 report?
Mr. Mancuso. 1994 reports. We randomly selected as part of
that review, M-17 and M-40 protective masks and had them tested
by the Marine Corps Test and Evaluation Unit, using Army-
authorized equipment and test criteria. These were Army masks
we were testing. The masks were tested for leaks and fit on a
variety of mask testers. A visual inspection was also performed
on all the masks to identify defects and missing parts.
The problems indicated by our testing and other data
collection were significant. We found deficiencies in mask
design, production issues, acceptance testing, maintenance and
also the lack of periodic testing of the fielded masks. While
military equipment is what we call ``ruggedized,'' it would
stand wear and tear and be able to function in difficult
conditions, it is very difficult to design masks impervious to
all environmental and operational forces. For this reason, it
is a major challenge, but it's a necessary challenge, to
address the area of preventive maintenance.
We found that soldiers were simply not following prescribed
procedures when performing maintenance nor were they reporting
the requirements as required. As part of our audit, we asked
soldiers to perform maintenance before they submitted their
masks to us for inspection and testing. But even after this
instruction, we found, through visual review, that many masks
were reassembled improperly or were unserviceable.
We believe that the adequacy of maintenance can best be
determined by an aggressive program of periodic surveillance
testing, whether the masks are in the hands of troops or in
supply. At the time of our audit, only the Marines had such a
testing program.
As a result of our audits, a Joint Service Mask Technical
Working Group was established in 1995 to conduct a full study.
The study results, published in November of last year, included
the testing of nearly 20,000 masks of which more than half were
found to have critical defects.
I believe actually a quarter of the masks passed, a quarter
of the masks had major and minor defects, and half failed with
critical problems. Although this study validated concerns
raised in our 1994 audits, the Department rejected the study's
recommendation for a centralized testing program. As a result,
despite general agreement in the Department and the services as
to the need for consistent testing procedures and criteria, the
job of correcting the problem remains with the individual
services.
All services now acknowledge the need for continued mask
surveillance and are taking appropriate implementation
measures. Frankly, Congressman, we hear that all the time and I
guess we will be back in a year or two to audit what actually
occurs.
Last, the subcommittee requested that I comment on an audit
report that we issued in December 1998 relative to the M-41
protective assessment test system capabilities. The report
examined whether a combination of field level maintenance in a
mask verified by the M-41 system was sufficient to assure mask
readiness. Our review determined that the M-41 reliability as a
combat readiness test is questionable. It does not test masks
under realistic battlefield conditions. We also found problems
with respect to operator training, equipment calibration and
inconsistent testing criteria.
In response to this report the Department has tasked the
Army to provide input needed to develop new testing criteria.
The Army has indicated as recently as this month that the
services have agreed to new ``fit factor'' criteria, which is
one of the testing criteria. However, we're still awaiting
comments from the Department in this regard and we remain
concerned about the lack of consistent serviceability testing
and test criteria.
In closing, I note that chemical and biological defense has
long been a primary focus of IG readiness audits, and given the
importance of fully addressing the management challenges in
this area, we have attempted to maintain continuous coverage
despite severe resource constraints.
Thank you for considering the views of my office on these
important matters, and that concludes my statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mancuso follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. I note for the record that
we are joined by Mr. Sanford and welcome him.
I am going to read my summation of what I think your
testimony is, and I want to ask if you would agree with--
whether you agree with whether my summation is an accurate
summation of what you think you have said.
Despite the growing threat, the business of protecting our
forces from chemical and biological attacks have not been
managed effectively and is vulnerable to fraud, waste and
abuse. You basically find there is a lack of inventory control
over chemical protective suits at the Defense Logistics Agency.
This is a problem because protective chemical suits are a
critical war reserve item.
The managers of the company, Isratex, Inc., conspired to
provide defective chemical protective suits to the Department
of Defense. Although DLA knew of problems with the company, it
took several years before agreeing to stop shipping potentially
defective suits to our military forces. In 1994, your office
uncovered problems with the serviceability and integrity of
chemical protective masks already in use. To some extent the
problems are attributable to design and production problems,
while other aspects of the problems are attributed to training
and field maintenance checks. Despite your recommendations for
corrective action, these problems persist today.
Those problems persist in part because the services have
resisted some of your recommendations and no single DOD office
has exercised sufficient oversight authority to make the
changes you recommended.
Now, that is what we have taken from your oral and written
testimony. Is that essentially your testimony?
Mr. Mancuso. It is essentially correct. I would add, I
really don't know what the current status is on the inventory
of chemical warfare suits. I have not seen their most recent
inventory. Theoretically they had an all-encompassing inventory
in Albany and have accounted for the missing suits and
determined the location of all suits. So that may in fact have
been corrected. I defer to DLA to comment on that during their
testimony.
Mr. Shays. Basically you are not disagreeing with anything
that I summarized other than that?
Mr. Mancuso. No, I'm not, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. And the only additional--that is your only
additional add-on to what I have said?
Mr. Mancuso. That is correct.
Mr. Shays. Based on your audits, are the problems with
protective clothing inventories a matter of dollars or
management?
Mr. Mancuso. Problems as far as the inventory? Is that what
you are saying?
Mr. Shays. Yes.
Mr. Mancuso. It is both. They are management problems. Some
of them are complicated by a lack of money, I'm sure. What we
found during our audits, for instance, in 1999--excuse me, in
1997, as well as again in 1999--is that cutbacks in the number
of employees at the depot, changes in the system, and other
logistics improvements that were being pushed through the
system, all contributed in some way to the lack of good
inventory management.
Nonetheless, there is very little that is as important to
the Department of Defense as good inventory management. It is
directly tied to readiness. It is directly tied to waste and
abuse. Poor inventory management can lead to, for instance, the
needless acquisition of items that you may have sitting right
under your nose in another part of the warehouse.
So although I believe that there is some money in the
issue, management is very important, and I think DLA is
attempting to get it under control but this is a problem that
goes well beyond DLA. Inventory as a whole is a major problem
for the Department of Defense and one they are wrestling with
and one that in fact remains as an impediment to the Department
producing clear, clean financial statements.
Mr. Shays. We thought that one of the things our committee
would do is just focus on our storage of equipment, our
maintenance of equipment, and we determined that our committee
would be spending all of our time doing that, it is so massive.
But it is something that we're very tempted to get into in a
very big and real way. I want you to tell me what systematic
flaws or weaknesses allowed DLA to issue potentially defective
equipment to U.S. warfighters.
Mr. Mancuso. In the case about defective equipment, that we
are talking about here, there is very little, I think, that DLA
could have done to avoid fraud by a group of individuals that
were intent on subverting the system, whatever the system might
be. One of the points I did not make and I probably should have
made in my oral testimony was that it was in fact DLA, back in
1993, that referred the allegations of potential fraud by this
company to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, having
to do with the coats and overalls that the quality people
suspected that this company was somehow subverting their
efforts.
Mr. Shays. That's a plus that they did that. It is a minus
that they knew it.
Mr. Mancuso. I'm certainly not making excuses for them. But
you asked what they could do about stopping items from getting
into the system. If you are talking about the acquisition end,
it is difficult when you have a company intent on defrauding
you. If you are talking about just stopping lower quality that
may not be an intentional fraud, you need the most intense
inspection effort that you can have, and that becomes a money
issue. Once the items are in the system, however, then I
believe very strongly that it's the people who control the
inventory who bear a great responsibility for ensuring that
good decisions are made as to what to do with defective items.
If you are going to make a decision to allow something to stay
in inventory or perhaps go out to the troops, at a minimum the
warfighters need to be a participant in the discussions as to
what exactly are you allowing to go out.
Mr. Shays. I'm a little troubled here. I'm getting the
feeling more that you are describing to me that the problem
happened. I'm uncertain as to what systematic problems occurred
that allowed our soldiers to basically get equipment that, if
they had been exposed to chemicals, they would have died and we
wouldn't have been able to carry out our mission. And my
question to you was what systematic flaws? I gather there is
just total carelessness. I mean, are you basically reporting
that this happened, or are you making recommendations on how to
avoid it in the future?
Mr. Mancuso. I think I'm having trouble answering your
question because I'm not sure if you want me to focus on what
happened in the case of Isratex and suits or if you are talking
much more broadly about the acquisition of materiel.
Mr. Shays. What bothers me is a lot. This is not a happy
day for me. Mr. Lieberman and I go back a ways. We go back to
the 1994 study, and I was a member of this committee and we
weren't seeing action taken and so one of the staff said I
should read this report. And then I sat down with Mr.
Lieberman, sat down with the people who did it, and then I sat
down with the Army, who basically said this report was not done
well. So we are going to get into that.
I am not suggesting that I am in a particularly good mood.
But what I am trying to wrestle with is that we knew that we
had defective suits. We cannot deny that we did not know it,
because we prosecuted people and some people were sent to jail.
I almost view it as treasonous because I view as giving
defective equipment that you produce to our military personnel
means they are dead men. If they are exposed to chemicals and
it means our mission cannot be carried out and then it means
that other people who are not exposed to chemicals may be
exposed to other--their life is threatened because our mission
isn't being able to be carried out successfully. When we have
part of the mission not being able to be carried out right, it
endangers the rest of the mission.
What I am wrestling with is how in God's name is it
possible for military personnel to give bad equipment to other
military personnel? I just don't know how it can happen.
So I want to know--I know we purchased it. I know we
prosecuted. I want to know was it just carelessness,
recklessness, or was it just simply they did not care? Did they
care but there was a systematic flaw that made this happen? And
to what extent you can answer that question, I'd appreciate it.
And if someone else can answer it, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Mancuso. I suspect DLA will eventually have to answer
that question.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you this in fairness to you. Have
you--are you basically, is your report before us today just
documenting it happened but not documenting why it happened and
documenting--and making recommendations on how to prevent it in
the future? And so I just want to know what you are prepared to
say.
Mr. Mancuso. We are prepared to testify clearly that it
happened and that it happened despite our discussions with DLA,
both oral discussions and correspondence that was exchanged.
And it is my understanding from talking to our people that the
rationale that was eventually given was that it was a business
decision, it was a decision made by the logistics people after
they weighed what they viewed as the seriousness or lack of
seriousness of the defects, the readiness needs, the
availability of other suits, etc. They determined that they
would keep those things in inventory. I certainly question that
decision.
Mr. Shays. It sounds to me like, you know, you have one
bullet in the chamber and you just keep pulling it and
eventually you get killed. Some of those suits--am I
misunderstanding the problem? Were some of the suits defective
to the extent that they would not protect against a chemical or
biological exposure?
Mr. Mancuso. Certainly the charge that we included in our
indictment was that they were providing suits that were
dangerously deficient. And the testing that was done,
independent testing we had done by Natick, showed that there
was a significant number of suits that were tested in the
samples that had critical defects and could, therefore,
endanger troops.
Mr. Shays. Defects like holes.
Mr. Mancuso. Open seams.
Mr. Shays. Open seams. Defects like using different
material than met the specs. Holes, seams that were open and
material that wasn't--inferior material, material that did not
meet the specs that they were supposed to meet, that this
equipment did not work.
And we prosecuted them for that. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Mancuso. That's correct.
Mr. Shays. And isn't it correct that the prosecution was
successful?
Mr. Mancuso. Oh, yes, that's correct.
Mr. Shays. And so we cannot deny. Otherwise, you have got
to let them out of jail or we better, you know, not hold the
company accountable.
So that's happened and that's not what I'm getting into.
I'm trying to understand how military personnel can allow other
military personnel to have defective equipment. You're not in a
position to tell us how it happened right now. You're just able
to say it happened. I don't want to suggest just that your
research did more than it did if it did not. So the extent of
the research is that it happened. You don't quite know and you
haven't come up with specific recommendations on how to prevent
it in the future; is that correct?
Mr. Mancuso. That's correct.
Mr. Shays. Well, let me do this. I want to give--Mr.
Lieberman, you and I will have a little dialog about masks, but
Ms. Schakowsky, you have the floor.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mancuso, I'm
new to this terrain, so if I am asking questions that you have
already testified to or repeating what the chairman has said,
please forgive me because I am struggling to understand how all
of this happened as well.
So we have two batches of suits made by the manufacturer in
1989 and 1992, the larger batch being the 1989; right? About
606,000 suits and 173,000 in 1992.
Mr. Mancuso. Correct.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me focus first on the 1992 batch.
The DLA originally placed a freeze on the suits made in
1992 because of concerns with the manufacturer on a completely
separate contract; is that right?
Mr. Mancuso. Correct.
Ms. Schakowsky. Related to cold weather parkas or
something?
Mr. Mancuso. Correct.
Ms. Schakowsky. In 1995, you requested a quality inspection
of the suits in question here. Why did you make that request?
Mr. Mancuso. Because the investigators during the course of
their review of the situation involving Isratex found that it
seemed to be a normal business practice for them to attempt to
circumvent the system and to supply inferior, defective and
less costly types of material. They had reason to believe and
this is based on witness testimony as well--that this included
chemical warfare suits. For that reason beginning in January
1995, we notified DLA that we suspected that, in fact, there
were problems with the suits and we suggested to them that a
quality audit be done and some segregation of the 1989 and 1992
lots of warfare suits.
Ms. Schakowsky. The defects that we are talking about are
the ones that you just went over, open seams, that kind of
thing?
Mr. Mancuso. Correct, although at that point I suspect we
were not as confident as to precisely what the defects were. We
were working on witness testimony. There hadn't been the
testing from the professional test lab.
Ms. Schakowsky. You called them significant defects at the
time, although it is reported elsewhere that these were not
critical defects. But you felt at that point that the entire
lot should be withheld, right?
Mr. Mancuso. We suggested that the first thing that should
happen is that they should do a quality check of these items
and it may be appropriate to segregate items; in other words,
put them aside.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. Again, correct me if I am wrong, but
the DLA concluded the suits were servable anyway; is that
correct?
Mr. Mancuso. DLA eventually concluded that, although they
found defects, they did not feel that those defects rose to the
level that would justify segregation of all of the suits. Yes.
Ms. Schakowsky. And at that time did you disagree that the
suits were servable?
Mr. Mancuso. We disagreed and we continued to investigate.
And then eventually we obtained other independent testing that
showed far more critical defects.
Ms. Schakowsky. In 1999 you requested that the suits be
tested again; right? Why did you make that second request?
Mr. Mancuso. It was primarily in support of the criminal
investigation and evidence that would be needed to ensure the
successful prosecution.
Mr. Shays. Put the mic in front of you a little bit more.
It is kind of on the angle there. Thank you.
Ms. Schakowsky. And during this check, the inspectors found
critical flaws in the suits; correct?
Mr. Mancuso. Yes, many, both through testing and even
through visual inspection. They found things such as open
seams.
Ms. Schakowsky. So why would the inspections in 1996 and
1999 have different outcomes? They were probably different
inspectors, but was there a different standard?
Mr. Mancuso. I would defer to Ms. Levy on that as to
whether or not there was a different standard.
Ms. Levy. There were no critical defects found on the first
inspection. On the second inspection when Natick did the
inspection they found seven critical defects. Natick used the
appropriate version of the specs to test the items. When the
items were first tested by DSCP, they used an earlier version
of the specs to test the product. Natick used the version that
was appropriate to the 1992 contract to conduct the tests. They
found seven critical defects. But DSCP did agree that at least
one of the critical defects found by Natick was indeed a
critical defect.
Ms. Schakowsky. If we are talking about open seams, you
used the word you could visually observe them. It is hard for
me to understand why--and that sounds pretty critical to me,
why that wouldn't have been discovered in the earlier
inspection. I mean, I understand what you are saying about the
different and more appropriate standards. But they seem pretty
blatant, even if what was finally found----
Mr. Mancuso. I don't think there is any way to positively
ascertain why that difference occurred. One simple reason may
be we weren't looking at the precise same suits. I don't
believe that Natick, when they were looking in 1999, were
looking at the precise same suits that had been looked at by
DLA. They were looking at a representative sampling drawn from
different lots. But because these are such critical items, a
very limited number of defects would, in fact, have caused a
rejection of the entire lot while they were still at the
contractor. They would not have been accepted by the inspector.
That's what the contract would have required, that the entire
lot be rejected because the representative sampling----
Ms. Schakowsky. Exactly, which is why I am trying to figure
out why that did not happen.
Mr. Mancuso. There is no way--I don't think there is any
concrete way--to determine why the two testings came up with
different results.
Ms. Levy. There is some explanation as to why they came up
with different results with regard to the critical defects
because some of the critical defects that were identified as
critical during the second testing were classified as major
under the specs that were used for the initial test. They were
not considered critical defects. Then Natick updates their
specs, now some of those items that were first classified as
major are now considered critical.
Ms. Schakowsky. Well, in the end though we did find that
the activity on the part of the manufacturer was intentional
and they have been, as we pointed out, they have now been
prosecuted and convicted; right?
Mr. Mancuso. That's correct.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me ask about the 1989 suits. So there
was not, then, a DLA freeze put on any suits? Or were they--was
there a DLA freeze put on 1992 suits?
Mr. Mancuso. The 1992 suits I believe were segregated in
1995.
Ms. Schakowsky. Do we mean the same thing when I say freeze
and you say segregated?
Mr. Mancuso. We are talking about segregated, moved, taken
out of active inventory--identified not for normal
distribution. For the 1992 suits. The 1989 suits were never
segregated until about a month ago.
Ms. Schakowsky. Right. That's what I want to get at. So
when the United States was entering Bosnia, for instance, the
1989 suits were in circulation?
Mr. Mancuso. That's correct.
Ms. Schakowsky. And when the suits were tested in 1996,
were tests conducted on all the suits or just the 1992?
Mr. Mancuso. Just the 1992 suits.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. And the 1999 inspection, that focused
on the 1992 suits only too?
Mr. Mancuso. No, that focused on, I believe, both sets of
suits.
Ms. Levy. No. May 2000.
Mr. Mancuso. It's the most recent ones, the final testing
in the last few months included the 1989 suits and also
resulted in the full segregation of the 1989 suits.
Ms. Schakowsky. Wasn't there a 1999? There were three
opportunities for the DLA to focus also on the 1989 suits and
it did not. Isn't that true?
Ms. Levy. Natick conducted a test of the 1992 suits in
September 1999 and that is when they identified the critical
defects.
Ms. Schakowsky. And not the 1989 suits.
Ms. Levy. That's correct.
Ms. Schakowsky. So now we are up to 1989 and the 1989 suits
three times in a row were not inspected.
Ms. Levy. That's correct.
Ms. Schakowsky. And they were made by the same manufacturer
with the same now conviction and suspicion--well, anyway;
right?
Ms. Levy. Indeed it was a continuous production, yes.
Mr. Mancuso. It would be useful, I think, to mention that
when we talk in the Department of Defense about a 1989
contract, conceivably they could be manufacturing today under a
1989 contract. Sometimes they overlap with other contracts. So
throughout a period of time they were producing under the 1989
contracts, then producing extensively under the 1992 contract.
So it goes on. The reason----
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. Let me, let me go on. What I'm trying
to understand is it would have made just as much sense to
segregate, it seems to me, the 1989 suits too under the same
rationale, just to be safe, from a questionable manufacturer.
Mr. Mancuso. That was certainly our position.
Ms. Levy. Could I just correct something? You said there
were three tests where the 1989s could have been tested. There
were two tests and on the third test the 1989 suits were
tested. May 2000.
Ms. Schakowsky. That was 2000?
Ms. Levy. Yes.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. OK. That was in May. So it turns out
though that the 1989 suits were just as flawed as the 1992
suits; is that right?
Ms. Levy. There were defects identified, two of which were
critical when they were tested in May 2000.
Ms. Schakowsky. And yet there were three our four times as
many suits produced and in circulation. So I'm having trouble
figuring out why the 1989 suits were excluded from
consideration or scrutiny when they had the same manufacturer,
same quality problems, when there were many more of them. When
you requested the inspections in 1995, did you explicitly
request that inspections be done of the 1989 suits as well?
Mr. Mancuso. Yes, we did, and that resulted in a series of
discussions and negotiations with DLA as to having this
accomplished.
DLA cited a figure that I believe was about a quarter of a
million dollars that it would cost them to do the appropriate
sampling and testing for what we were looking for under both of
those contracts and noted that they frankly could not afford to
do that. And we actually negotiated for one contract and it
cost them about $70,000 to conduct the testing.
Ms. Schakowsky. But beyond that, and I'm curious how you
felt about it when General Glisson had a press conference, a
DLA official, said quote: The 1989 lot has never been
questioned. They never had a single quality control problem
identified on the 1989 lot. That was not correct; right?
Mr. Mancuso. That was not correct.
Mr. Shays. Let me thank the gentlewoman for her questions
and go to Mrs. Biggert.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mancuso, in your testimony you talk about--I'm
switching now to the protective masks--that out of the 19,218
masks that were tested there were found to be 10,322 that had
critical defects. And in your statement, you talk about the
Deputy Assistant for Chemical Biological Defense, Dr. Anna
Johnson-Winegar, informed the IG that it was not her job to
construct readiness oversight. Do you see a problem with that
and who is in charge for oversight of these?
Mr. Mancuso. We had hoped that her office would take the
initiative and attempt to take control of the situation,
recognizing this is not an easy thing to do in the Department
of Defense with the various military services. But we have seen
success in other areas. We had hoped in this area that that
office would have again taken the initiative to get that done.
She apparently felt that this was not something that needed to
be done by her office.
Mrs. Biggert. Well, you talked, I note, at the last hearing
this subcommittee had on chemical and biological defense, again
nobody wanted to be in charge. And today you mentioned about
centralized testing. We still don't even have centralized
testing between the services, do we?
Mr. Mancuso. No, we do not. And, in fact, just to be fair,
the area that we are primarily concerned about is standardized
maintenance testing. Her office is certainly involved in trying
to get some consensus with the services on criteria and things
like that. They are certainly involved. But they fell short of
what we would have liked to have seen coming out of the Office
of Secretary of Defense, which would be a strong leadership and
control in ensuring that there was uniform testing across the
board with the services.
Mrs. Biggert. Well, if--has this been a recommendation that
you have made to the Department of Defense to have centralized
testing and to have somebody in charge?
Mr. Mancuso. We've supported that concept--we were involved
in the joint study and we supported that recommendation and it
is out there and our representative was one of the teams that
formulated it.
Mrs. Biggert. Have any of the service branches been
responsive and been willing to have somebody that will have
oversight in that?
Mr. Mancuso. Mr. Lieberman has been directly involved in
that. I will let him answer.
Mr. Lieberman. We made the recommendation for a centralized
test program in our 1994 reports. The Department nonconcurred
and we have been negotiating ever since.
Centralization is not as important as standardization. What
we've been after now for 6 years is to make sure that adequate
testing is going on. Whether it is done all in one place by one
organization or not is really not the key factor. That is one
way to make it happen. Otherwise, you're fighting four
different sets of priorities in four different military
services. So that's why we initially went to the idea of a
centralized program.
It is conceivable that four different test programs can
fulfill the same objective, as long as there is coordination
and oversight of what is going on and someone is able to
identify any of the services that is not really stepping up to
the challenge. So if it's going to be a decentralized testing
operation, we would say that strong oversight is absolutely
necessary to make that work.
Mrs. Biggert. Well, if there is four different services
that are doing this testing, and maybe they find very similar
problems, and yet there is no one that says, oh, maybe there is
really something inherently wrong with those masks because it
is not brought back together for a centralized report.
Mr. Lieberman. Yes, we do see a lack in terms of a way, as
you say, of bringing these things back together. The Army is
the executive agent in the Department for individual protective
equipment. And that's fine because the Army has a lot of
technical expertise in chemical matters.
But there is sort of a conflict of interest if you are
talking about one of the services in essence oversighting
itself here. And we really think there is a crying need for
strong leadership from both OSD and the Joint Staff in this
area.
Mrs. Biggert. So you could only recommend that and then
it's up to the Department of Defense to make that decision?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Biggert. Do you think that the Department of Defense
is unresponsive to this--to the request? Or to the
recommendation?
Mr. Lieberman. I think the response from the Department
candidly has been disappointing. We made those recommendations
in 1994 and it's only within the last year that the services
have started the types of mask surveillance testing programs
that we have been recommending since 1994.
Mrs. Biggert. In looking at these protective masks and the
critical defects, were most of these defects because of poor
maintenance by the servicemen and women or were there inherent
defects when they were purchased or delivered?
Mr. Lieberman. There were some production problems, but by
and large, the bulk of the problem here is a maintenance
problem. The designs of the masks today are good. It is good
equipment, but it is not soldier-proof by any means. And
apparently the masks really suffer once they're in the hands of
the users. The maintenance routine is either too difficult or
not well enough understood by the troops and you have got to
have proper maintenance for this equipment to work.
Mrs. Biggert. If they don't receive the training or if it's
not--they don't care for them properly, is that again because
there is no standardized training or standardized maintenance
that is given to the four services to train their personnel on
how to maintain those masks?
Mr. Lieberman. It is a leadership problem reaching all the
way down to the smallest-sized units of the services. You are
not going to have exact standardized training because there are
some differences in the models of mask that the different
services are using. And there are real environmental
differences between shipboard use of masks by the Navy and
masks that an infantry unit has out in the field some place,
for example.
But this is essentially a leadership problem. It is a
command problem. It's no different from the soldier's weapon
not being able to fire because it's not properly maintained. So
we have to find a way to get every single user of a mask, which
is down to the lowliest PFC in Army terms, to maintain these
masks properly.
The only way to know whether that is happening or not is to
bring in technical experts with equipment to test the masks to
find out whether they are still serviceable or not.
Mrs. Biggert. Is that what you talked about your carry-on
or testing equipment, or I forget what you called it, but
something that is mobile?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes. Nowadays the good news is that there is
better test equipment on the market. Much better test
equipment. There's a new device that basically takes a semi-
trailer's worth of equipment and puts it in a suitcase and you
don't lose any capability. So obviously this should make it
much easier logistically to take the equipment to where the
users are and do onsite testing.
Mrs. Biggert. And with leadership that would be
accomplished. Just one quick thing, could you just define what
``critical defects'' are?
Mr. Lieberman. Critical defects are defects that have
potential life-threatening consequences.
Mrs. Biggert. And an example would be?
Mr. Lieberman. An open seam that allows leakage through the
seam.
Mrs. Biggert. Or broken eyeglass or whatever?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentlewoman. And the gentleman from
North Carolina.
Mr. Sanford. South Carolina. Come on, be nice.
Mr. Shays. Is that a critical mistake?
Mr. Sanford. It's huge. Huge.
Mr. Shays. Huge. I love your basketball teams.
Mr. Sanford. Exactly. I've just got one quick question, and
that is when I look at inventory accuracy, as I read through
the pages of your testimony, I mean it just struck me as an
incredibly odd story. And that is you begin with the defense
depot in Columbus, OH, supposedly there are around 2 million
suits. The audit finds--I guess this is the 1997 audit finds
that there are major discrepancies, was your wording.
They adjust for $46 million worth of basically lost
equipment, and they find that basically there are a half
million fewer protective suits than they thought were the case.
Then it turns out in 728 other locations, they basically find
another almost 700,000 suits that they did not know were over
there worth about $51 million. The audit says, quote, a series
of poor inventory management practices. It is believed that
this can be cleared up by moving this stuff to the defense
depot in Albany, GA. The stuff is moved down to Georgia, but in
fact there is the opposite effect in terms of inventory problem
and of the 225,000 protective suits that are supposed to be
there, it turns out there are 31,000 suits not there. And at
this point, people are not even worried about quality. It says
quality was never verified, but they begin a wall-to-wall
inventory. It is completed January 2000 and it turns out 23,000
of the missing suits were found in like completely different
storage areas. And, essentially, as I read this, the other
7,000 protective suits were basically written off.
Is that normal?
Mr. Mancuso. I would add that was one type of suit, when
you gave those last few numbers. We're not certain about the
other 19 types of suits. We're waiting for the inventory.
Is that normal? We have seen this type of problem before
involving other types of commodities, to the extent where, as I
mentioned earlier, it has a significant impact on the overall
DOD financial statement. There is a huge amount of money
involved and the records are simply not right and not reliable.
It is a problem. And there are many ongoing initiatives in
the Department to help correct that problem. Part of the issue
is the tying in of inventory with financial records, trying to
have some joint accountability there.
Mr. Sanford. But it kind of strikes me as odd that you can
get on the Internet now and call up a place called Amazon.com
and you can order some book from some strange inventory that
they've got in another State and somehow the book ends up in
your house 2 days later. And I am not saying that DOD should
ever be tied to that level of technology, but in other words
clearly structurally there is something wrong if you are
looking at that kind of misplacement of assets owned by the
taxpayer.
If you were to look at structure, what is wrong with
structure that allows something like that to happen? I mean, I
think there was an allegation, well, that too many inventory
type folks have been cut from the budget and therefore that was
the root. Is that the root problem? Or, no, they've just got
really faulty inventory practices and not at all concurrent
with what you would see in business today? I mean, what is it?
If you look at root causes for how something like that happens,
what's the root cause from your perspective?
Mr. Lieberman. Sir, there are a number of causes. One is
inaccurate data in computerized data bases. These records are
all automated. Since we are talking about each depot trying to
manage hundreds of thousands of different types of items, they
are heavily dependent on the accuracy of computer records.
Unfortunately, in the Department of Defense----
Mr. Sanford. If I go down that logic essentially I think
that many of the people doing data entry at Amazon.com are paid
less than people are paid in the military. And yet I mean last
time I checked, when I had ordered one of those books I mean it
doesn't go to North Carolina. Shays would like to send me to
North Carolina. But in other words, it comes to South Carolina.
So I don't understand.
Mr. Lieberman. Well, my point is the inventory management
systems just are not good enough. They are full of bad data.
This is one of the reasons why the GAO has designated DOD
inventory management as a high-risk area, going back to the
original list of Federal Government management high-risk areas.
And there is really no prospect of it coming off that list any
time soon because we need to field a whole generation of
systems that are more capable of cleaning out bad data.
Once you get a data base that is full of inaccurate
information, it is really hard to ever recover. It is
particularly frustrating in the DLA situation because DLA is
using a reasonably new, reasonably modern system, the
distribution standard system for its basic inventory
recordkeeping. So we are not talking about some ancient system
that you could say is just plain outmoded. But still it is
chronically inaccurate. The inventory counts that are done by
the depots are not up to snuff either and this is one thing the
auditors have observed as we assess their inventory methods.
GAO issued a report last winter saying that DLA had the
poorest inventory accuracy record of any of the components that
store large quantities of supplies in the Department. It was
down in the low 80's, which for logisticians is really
terrible. So they know they have that problem.
In the annual financial statement audits, as Mr. Mancuso
mentioned, one of the reasons why we have declared the DOD
financial records unauditable every year now since the Chief
Financial Officers Act was passed is the inability to
demonstrate that we have accurate inventory.
So it is a real problem. A lot of effort is being made to
correct it. But, unfortunately, there are a lot of stories like
the chemical suits out there.
Mr. Sanford. If you were to pick two things that would be
most helpful in fixing that problem, what would they be?
Mr. Lieberman. Better automated systems, and an objective
look at the staffing requirements at these depots rather than
just cutting the work force arbitrarily.
Mr. Sanford. Say that again. I was interrupted. The second
sentence again was what?
Mr. Lieberman. An objective look at the staffing
requirements at the depots rather than just reducing their
rolls arbitrarily to meet work force reduction goals.
Mr. Sanford. Mr. Chairman, I will ask one other question.
Can I ask one other question, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Shays. You have the floor.
Mr. Sanford. And this is not directly related but it is
related to defense logistics, and that is the current, quote,
surplus program. Give me your take on that just for a few
minutes. In other words, the numbers I have seen suggest that
out of the back-door of DOD goes somewhere between $350 million
and $3.5 billion worth of stuff every year that is given to
other Federal agencies, State or local government.
Are there these kinds of inequities or inaccuracies
possible in that program as well? Because I for one believe
that that stuff ought to go on a market basis, sold at auction
if you will on a market basis to those other agencies, State or
local government, as opposed to being given, which I think
would prop DOD up to the tune of $3.5 billion that could be
used in other functions of defense.
Are the same kind of inefficiencies existing there that I
see here?
Mr. Mancuso. It is certainly related. And in fact the
better your inventory system is, the less surplus should be
pushed out the door. One of the things that we were concerned
about but I don't believe we found in the case of the chemical
warfare suits, for instance, is did the fact that there were
all of these suits that they did not even know they had, cause
them to go out and buy even more suits that they did not need?
And if that were the case, eventually somebody is going to have
to dispose of them. Because these have a shelf life, eventually
they go out in surplus. It did not happen in this case, but we
see it in other cases.
Poor inventory controls result in wasteful acquisitions and
frequently result in an excess of items being pushed out into
the surplus chain.
As far as giving things away to charities or whatever, we
have seen gross inequities in some of those cases. We have seen
individuals conspire. In one case involving a local fire
department in some small State, received 27 fire trucks in a
few-year period. In another instance, somebody who held
themselves out as a Native American received literally hundreds
of thousands of blankets and then opened a blanket business.
These things happen and there are issues--they are not
necessarily the fault of the people in the surplus chain but
there are inventory issues. Things can only have a useful life
for so long.
You also have the problem that the more you store, the more
it costs you to store it. So things end up going out in surplus
on that end as well. They are certainly tied together.
Mr. Sanford. I thank the gentleman, and I thank the
chairman.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman and thank Mr. Mica for his
patience. You have the floor.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Who would be the most
familiar with this Isratex case? Mr. Mancuso, would you be
familiar with the case?
Mr. Mancuso. Yes. Yes, I would be.
Mr. Mica. I noticed in the testimony here that the criminal
investigation was initiated in May 1993. It appears though,
that action really wasn't taken against them until just
recently. Some of the--looks like October 1998 indictment was
superseded in 1999 by a 23-count indictment.
Mr. Mancuso. Uh-huh.
Mr. Mica. What took so long in going after these folks?
Mr. Mancuso. The case was a fairly complex case. It moved
from an investigation of a facility in Puerto Rico having to do
with coveralls and coats in the 1993 and 1994 timeframe to
eventually----
Mr. Mica. Into fraud in another area, supplying other
fraudulent goods----
Mr. Mancuso. And then moved this into the protective suits
in 1995. But that's not a terribly long time for a complex
fraud case. Typically, from the time that the case is initiated
and to a conviction it would not at all be unusual----
Mr. Mica. This company looks like it had several
operations, one in West Virginia, one in Puerto Rico, and also
cited a headquarters or some offices in New York.
Mr. Mancuso. Correct.
Mr. Mica. Do they still do business with us?
Mr. Mancuso. No, they are in bankruptcy and they have been
suspended and debarred by the Defense Logistics Agency.
Mr. Mica. And I guess we won't recover anything. It seems
almost like a minuscule fine of $266,000 and $96,000, and we
did $47 million worth of business on those two contracts.
Mr. Mancuso. I asked that same question, Congressman. In
cases where the fraud is so dramatic one might expect heavier
penalties. However, in this case virtually the entire corporate
leadership structure, as well as the company, were penalized. I
mean this guaranteed we put them out of business. Putting them
out of business eliminates, as far as the Justice Department is
concerned, much of a possibility of a successful civil suit.
These criminal fines were actually quite significant.
Mr. Mica. Are we able to go after them and recover money?
Because I would imagine some of these guys have some deep
pockets probably as a result of pass-through money from these
contracts.
Mr. Mancuso. That's a consideration for the Justice
Department, and usually that would be occurring----
Mr. Mica. They don't seem to be shy to go after legitimate
businesses.
Has this been referred to them?
Mr. Mancuso. Most certainly.
Mr. Mica. And have they done anything?
Mr. Mancuso. They have completed the criminal prosecution
and they have made some preliminary decisions----
Mr. Mica. Versus civil recovery?
Mr. Mancuso. They have made some preliminary decisions that
they will not pursue civil recovery based on the lack of
apparent wealth that's available.
Mr. Mica. We might look into that in my subcommittee. I
oversee Department of Justice and we have some questions about
some of the things that they're doing. It seems astounding to
me, too, that you can also have--I'm skipping now to masks--
19,218 masks that were tested and 10,322 had critical defects.
And this is just in one batch?
Mr. Mancuso. It is not a batch. That was a sampling, a very
broad sampling across the services of masks.
Mr. Mica. OK. So it was a sampling of the larger----
Mr. Mancuso. Right.
Mr. Mica. And I guess you have maybe three phases to your
testing these masks or making certain that there's quality
involved. One would be sort of a prepurchase, and then I guess
on delivery there must be some inspection and then shelf life.
Would those be the three major checks?
Mr. Mancuso. And the individual soldier and maintenance
check in the field as well.
Mr. Mica. And do you feel we have adequate--they have now
instituted adequate procedures to make certain that we catch
defects in all of these stages?
Mr. Mancuso. No, no, I wouldn't agree with that. We
certainly feel that there's need to be more standardized as far
as how testing is completed and the criteria that's used. We
don't have any reason to question----
Mr. Mica. Is this a problem of lack of funds to accomplish
this, is this something the Congress hasn't provided, military
short on resources, or is this a problem of not having proper
administrative procedures and controls in place?
Mr. Mancuso. To my knowledge there is no monetary issue
here. We are really talking about leadership within the
services and a recognition as to the importance of this problem
and a follow-through with the maintenance reviews. The Marine
Corps has shown it can be done.
Mr. Mica. There was a working group that put in
recommendations for a centralized mask surveillance testing
program. It says the Deputy Assistant rejected the working
group's recommendation. Who was that Deputy Assistant?
Mr. Mancuso. I believe that's Dr. Winegar.
Mr. Mica. Is he still around?
Mr. Mancuso. She.
Mr. Mica. She.
Mr. Mancuso. I believe she is with us here today and will
be testifying today.
Mr. Mica. But then it goes on, I guess that was at some
step in the process that she rejected that, and now I think
they have recanted; is that correct or no? Has she changed her
opinion?
Mr. Mancuso. No, not to my knowledge.
Mr. Mica. And you are still of the strong belief that the
working group's recommendations should be instituted?
Mr. Mancuso. At least this area of the recommendation
involving strong oversight by OSD to ensure standardization.
Mr. Mica. All right. I think that answers my questions, Mr.
Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman. In your statement on page
9, Mr. Mancuso, you say the Defense Logistic Agency initially
segregated the BDOs, that's the battle dress outfits that had
been delivered under the 1992 contract preventing operational
distribution. However, 3 months later, they concluded that the
BDOs were serviceable and returned them to regular stock,
leading to the audit finding that I discussed previously. Do
you know why they felt comfortable? I mean, basically, the
reason is they felt they were serviceable? Do you know under
what basis they felt they were serviceable?
Mr. Mancuso. They conducted their own review. I am not
sure----
Mr. Shays. DLA did their own review?
Mr. Mancuso. The DLA inspection staff conducted their own
review at that time. I am not sure what criteria they used, but
they made that decision unilaterally.
Mr. Shays. On page 16 as it relates to--Mr. Lieberman, we
go back a ways I think, correct?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes, we do, sir.
Mr. Shays. This is a report, quick reaction report,
reliability of the M 17 series and M 40 chemical protective
masks. It's report 94-154, June 30th, 1994. It's secret, but
there's a redacted version in the gulf war register under gulf
link, and so what's in the redacted is everything that is not
considered a secret. And there's also the November 2nd, 1994
report, Defense hotline allegations regarding fielding of
chemical protective masks. This is also secret, except that
there's a redacted version under gulf link.
Now, these two reports were brought to me sometime, I
guess, in 1995 by staff of this committee, which I was a member
but not chairman, in the minority, I believe--actually, it was
before 1995. I was actually in the minority. And I found what I
read in these so alarming that I went to Mr. Regal on the
Senate side, who I know had been involved because I didn't know
who I should speak to about information that became secret
about the condition of our masks, and I am asking you this
question: Is there, in your judgment, is there a logical reason
why 6 years later, these should be secret and why the
information in its entirety shouldn't be made public? Can you
think of any reason why it shouldn't be?
Mr. Lieberman. I would have to go through the report line
by line and discuss with whoever thought it was classified what
their rationale was. I believe at the time the main thrust of
the thinking--and as you know, it was the Department of the
Army that did the classification, not my office--but I believe
the main concern related to details of readiness deficiencies.
Mr. Shays. This is about the Department of the Army's
performance as it related to the masks, correct?
Mr. Lieberman. Largely, yes. Although, the other services
were involved, also.
Mr. Shays. They took the greatest exception to your report,
correct?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes. But we don't have classification
authority. Our authority is derivative.
Mr. Shays. I'll take your answer this way. You would have
to go through it to see if there would be--continue to be a
need for this to be secret.
But Mr. Mancuso, I'm going to read your statement on 16. So
we have a dispute with the Army, the Army didn't agree with
these reports. That's correct, isn't it, Mr. Lieberman?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes.
Mr. Shays. And the bottom line is there was some logic that
if this report was not accurate, why do we want information out
for public consumption that would lead people to come to a
conclusion that might not be an accurate one. I could see the
logic then. So we ended up with disputes with the Army as to
whether they were going to conform to this report or whether
they agreed to it, and they took strong exception to the
report. That's not a secret, that's a fact.
Now, in your report, in your statement, that is an attempt
to resolve the question of whether these reports and your
investigation were done properly and that the findings
therefore are valid, and you say, Mr. Mancuso, in your
statement, to resolve the outstanding issues, in June 1995, the
Department agreed to initial pilot retail chemical mask
surveillance studies. A joint service mask technical working
group was established to conduct the study under the auspices
of the joint service materiel group. The IG, DOD worked closely
with the working group to formulate the sampling plans for the
study and we also had a representative on the working group. In
other words, DOD has come together, the service branches are
coming together, you're cooperating and you're saying OK, let's
redo this, correct?
Mr. Mancuso. That's correct.
Mr. Shays. The results of the study were presented in a
final mask surveillance pilot program report of November 15,
1999. Now let me just tell you, I had a big problem that it
took so long, but now you can continue to say, in brief results
of the study released in November 1999 validated the concerns
that we had reported in 1994.
Now this is for public record. This is your statement. I am
not disclosing anything that's not--that I'm not allowed to
you, and let me say to you, I would never disclose secret
information, and I have felt it's my moral obligation to always
honor that, even if I disagree with the classification as you
do.
Now you said, in brief results of the study released in
November 1999 validated the concerns that we had reported in
1994. Of the 19,218 masks that were tested, 10,322 had critical
defects; is that accurate?
Mr. Mancuso. That is accurate.
Mr. Shays. Now, the Joint Service Integration Group, final
report, mask surveillance, process action team, November 5th,
1999. If I go through this report, ``minor'' is defined as a
defect that does not hinder the use of the item as it was
originally intended. ``Major,'' a defect that severely
restricts operational or serviceability of the mask, but is
unlikely to compromise protection of the mask, i.e., cause a
leak. And then critical, a defect that has the potential to
result in mask leakage and may impact on the protection of the
wearer. So that's the definition. You didn't invent this
definition. This is in the report.
Mr. Mancuso. Correct.
Mr. Shays. So if I turn over to page 3, and this is not a
classified document, is it?
Mr. Mancuso. No, it is not.
Mr. Shays. Of the 19,218 tested, a total of 4,898 passed
without a minor, major or critical notation. Minor, 2,549;
major, 1,449; critical, 10,322. Do you believe that the Joint
Service Integration Group final report mask surveillance,
process action team, of November 15th, 1999, validated the
findings that are still secret in this report?
Mr. Mancuso. Yes, I do.
Mr. Shays. Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. I just wanted to quickly finish up a line
of questioning. You had said that the DLA felt that inspecting
the 1989 lot would have cost $250,000, and for that reason they
decided not to do it, and then I quoted from General Glisson,
who actually went further and said that they never had a single
quality control problem identified on the 1989 lot. So was it a
financial decision or was it, in fact, that they were somehow
convinced that there was no problem?
Mr. Mancuso. I would argue it was primarily a financial
decision.
Ms. Schakowsky. Well, if it were a financial decision
originally, why weren't inspections ordered immediately once
company officials were charged with fraud?
Mr. Mancuso. They were charged on the, among other things,
they were charged with fraud involving the 1992 contract. I
don't believe there were any specific counts in the indictment
relating to the 1989 contract. That would be the rationale.
Ms. Schakowsky. Do we know whether the 1989 suits were used
in the gulf war?
Mr. Mancuso. My office, and we've had discussion as
recently as this morning about it, we are unaware as to the
precise distribution, if any, of the warfare suits. We would
rely on DLA to tell us the answer to that question. We've been
told that there was no such distribution, although certainly we
are as aware as anyone else as some of the news articles in
citing of units who purport to have received those items. The
answer is no, I am not aware of items that actually went out,
but we're in----
Ms. Schakowsky. Do you have confidence in their assurances
that they were not used? Do you have confidence?
Mr. Mancuso. I have confidence that as of a month ago when
they told me they were segregated, that they will not be
distributed. I have no reason to have confidence in the
statement that they were or were not issued out of inventory
before they were segregated last month.
Ms. Schakowsky. Last month. We are talking about the gulf
war. So it's possible that service members going back to the
gulf war, and since then, may have been using defective suits
the whole time they were there, and that those suits could have
been useless against a chemical or biological attack.
Mr. Mancuso. If items are not segregated, well, that
possibility would exist.
Ms. Schakowsky. What would the cost have been--what was the
value of the 1989 lot, the 1989 suits, do you know, if they
would have had to recall all 600,000.
Mr. Mancuso. About $38 million of the total approximately
$50 million.
Ms. Schakowsky. And was that a factor as well, do you
think?
Mr. Mancuso. I'd be guessing. From what I understand,
what's important to DLA is how much do they have on hand. Will
they be able to meet the services' needs? What's the cost for
segregation? What's the cost for testing? All of those are
considerations for them when they make a decision as to what,
if anything, they need to do.
Ms. Schakowsky. But what we do know is maybe $38 million
worth of suits maybe were being used by our service personnel
and putting them at risk.
Mr. Mancuso. I defer to DLA on that. I suspect some may
well have gotten out, but I have no reason to believe there was
any great volume of them. I just don't know.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. I just have one other line. I just want to
followup on what I previously asked. The bottom line is both
these reports have been validated in a very significant way by
the process action team. This wasn't the IG redoing its
investigation. It was a team effort in which you basically had
to come to some agreement about the testing criteria and the
process in which you would test the masks; is that correct, Mr.
Lieberman?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes, sir. This was the Department's tests.
We were just participants.
Mr. Shays. You were kind of just honest brokers in a sense
to make sure it was being handled properly, but they did the
tests of their equipment.
Mr. Lieberman. Correct. We helped them put together a
sampling plan, for example.
Mr. Shays. And if, in fact, they had determined there were
very few critical masks, you would have been there to say the
tests have shown that somehow we had--an earlier study was not
validated.
Mr. Lieberman. That's correct.
Mr. Shays. Now, after I said of the 19,218 masks--after you
said of the 19,218 masks that were tested, 10,322 were critical
defects, and we defined critical defects as being a defect that
has the potential result in a mask leakage and may impact on
protection of the wearer, examples, outlet valve, dirty slash
leaks, external drain tube quickly disconnects, leaks, side
voicemitter gasket missing, etc. After you made this statement
of the 19,218 masks that were tested, 10,322 had critical
defects, then you said, however, the Deputy Assistant for
Chemical Biological Defense informed us in March 2000 that--you
know what, let me even, before I go into what she said, let me
just come back and say that Larry R. Ellis, Lieutenant General,
G.S. Deputy Chief of Staff of Operations and Planning in the
Army, said in response to the PAT, and the process action team,
final reports that the data presented in the PAT final report
regarding the quality of defects found by the U.S. Marine
Corps, NBC equipment surveillance unit should be interpreted
with care. The purpose of the 2-year surveillance effort was to
see if masks over time were developing systematic problems. The
mask surveillance project found that there is no indication of
extensive degradation over time or through field usage other
than through wear and tear, which is exacerbated by a lack of
field/fleet maintenance.
That statement, however, is the same as--however, the
Deputy Assistant for Chemical Biological Defense informed us in
March 2000 that, ``there is no indication of extensive mask
degradation over time or through field usage other than through
wear and tear, which is exacerbated by a lack of field/fleet
maintenance.''
Is it possible that you misquoted the Deputy Assistant for
Chemical and Biological Defense and you meant Mr. Ellis?
Mr. Lieberman. No, sir. They both used the same language.
In fact, I believe the General was quoting the Deputy
Assistant. The Deputy Assistant's words are taken from a March
27th, 2000 memo that she sent me.
Mr. Shays. I just have to find out which happened first.
It's not all that important, trust me.
Mr. Lieberman. They were within a few weeks of each other.
Mr. Shays. The bottom line is they both were saying the
same thing?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. What does it mean?
Mr. Lieberman. The point that----
Mr. Shays. It means that they still insist that----
Mr. Lieberman. That the test results showed no
deterioration--well, there is a glimmer of good news in the
test results. That is, the masks are not deteriorating over
time because of such things as materiel degradation. The bad
news, though, and I think the compelling result of the test, is
that the masks leak. They're not sufficiently serviceable.
Mr. Shays. But 50 percent of the masks you tested had a
critical failure; is that correct?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes.
Mr. Shays. Is the Army still resisting, are they still
maintaining that these reports aren't valid? Are they still
maintaining that the masks do the job that are required?
Mr. Lieberman. Sir, you will have to ask the Army. The
latest communication from them is a description of what they
are doing to generate a viable training and masks surveillance
effort. We found that very welcome. It is basically a reversal
of their position after 6 years.
Mr. Shays. So the bottom line is 6 years after the fact,
they're now doing what you would have liked to see them do in
1994, 1995 when your first report came out.
Mr. Lieberman. Yes, that's a very fair characterization. In
fact, in our very first 1994 report, we talked about the need
for better maintenance, and the Army specifically said they
would take measures to improve mask maintenance. That was in
mid 1994. The tests, the DOD tests that we've just finished
talking about, tested masks during fiscal years 1997 and 1998.
The failure rates experienced or detected in 1998 show that
after 4 years of whatever the better maintenance program was,
it was still not working. That's the bad news that came out of
that report. Very startling.
The good news is, as I said, the Army is obviously making a
concerted effort right now to improve training, maintenance and
testing. We are still unsure of how deep the commitment is.
There's language in the Army response that says all this will
be done if funds are available, and I don't know how big a
loophole that is.
Mr. Shays. Make that last comment again, please.
Mr. Lieberman. The Army response to us said they will
execute an annual surveillance testing program as originally
recommended and as now promised, if funds are available, and I
don't know whether funds are available or not.
Mr. Shays. So the bottom line for this is basically half of
the masks had critical defects that could result in their not
being operational, and that half of the potential soldiers who
use them would find potentially that the equipment they're
wearing would be useless, that's the bottom line, and the sense
I get from you is that this is still not a high priority for
the Army. That's the sense I get.
Mr. Lieberman. Well, I can't put myself in the heads of the
Army and tell you----
Mr. Shays. I know you can't, but I can react to a statement
that says if they get the money, they will do the job. If I
ever suggested to any military personnel that they send our
troops in harm's way with defective equipment, I don't think
they would do that.
Mr. Lieberman. We agree.
Mr. Shays. Is there any question that you would have liked
any of us to ask? Is there any answer that you would have liked
to have made to a question that you wish we had asked?
Mr. Mancuso. Not from me, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. I don't want you to come to me later and say if
only you had asked this question. So if I didn't ask it you
need to ask yourself. Is there anything you think needs to be
part of the record, for the good of our country, that's not
already part of the record?
Mr. Mancuso. No.
Ms. Levy. No, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. And I just want to thank the staff that worked
on this original report because in my office, I felt that the
DOD personnel were extraordinarily condescending to your staff,
and I felt they were condescending to me as well. I felt that
they acted like they knew and you didn't, and you were willing
to have all of this be retested, and the reports are very
valid. And you have said, in a sense, that it reaffirms in some
way your earlier report and I agree with you. Thank you very
much.
I'd like to call our next panel and ask them to remain
standing so I can swear them in. Brigadier General Daniel
Mongeon, Commander, Defense Supply Center, Philadelphia;
accompanied by Mr. George Allen, Deputy Commander, Defense
Supply Center, Philadelphia. We also will hear testimony from
Mr. Robert Kinney, Individual Protection Director at Natick
Soldier Center, U.S. Army soldier and Biological Chemical
Command.
And is there anyone else that you believe you may turn to,
I would like to ask them to stand so we can swear them in as
well.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Thank you. Let me thank all of you. I have
strong feelings about this aspect of what the military is doing
but I know all of you to be very devoted Americans and very
competent individuals, and we'll see what we learn from your
statements and our questions, but we do appreciate your service
to our country and I mean that sincerely.
General Mongeon.
STATEMENTS OF BRIGADIER GENERAL DANIEL G. MONGEON, COMMANDER,
DEFENSE SUPPLY CENTER PHILADELPHIA, ACCOMPANIED BY GEORGE
ALLEN, DEPUTY COMMANDER, DEFENSE SUPPLY CENTER PHILADELPHIA;
AND ROBERT KINNEY, DIRECTOR, INDIVIDUAL PROTECTION DIRECTORATE,
NATICK SOLDIER CENTER, U.S. ARMY SOLDIER AND BIOLOGICAL
CHEMICAL COMMAND
General Mongeon. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and
distinguished members. I'm Brigadier General Dan Mongeon,
Commander of the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia, and I am
accompanied by my Deputy, Mr. George Allen. I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before this subcommittee and address
questions concerning individual protective equipment. I am here
representing the Defense Logistics Agency, because of the role
the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia plays in managing
individual protective equipment for the agency and the
Department of Defense.
In carrying out our mission, we work closely with the
Defense Distribution Center which receives, ships and stores
individual protective equipment as well as many other products
on our behalf. In its invitation to testify, the subcommittee
requested that we address four specific questions. The first
question was whether the Defense Logistics Agency is complying
with the recommendations made by the DOD Inspector General in
two specific audit reports. The Inspector General issued two
audit reports, one in 1997 and one this year, which found
discrepancies in the inventory records for battle dress
overgarments and recommended that these discrepancies be
corrected.
In the second report, the Inspector General also found that
chemical protective suits manufactured under two Isratex
contracts contained major defects and recommended that the
Defense Logistics Agency complete efforts to identify
potentially defective suits and remove them from inventory and
alert other DOD activities. The recommended inventory was
completed in January 2000, and all chemical suits that were
known to be potentially defective were physically segregated.
The Defense Supply Center Philadelphia alerted its customers of
potentially defective suits in December 1999, and again in
February 2000, advising the suits should be used only for
training purposes. In addition, worldwide clothing alerts were
issued in March of this year and May of this year.
With regard to the suits produced by Isratex, it is evident
that with the requisite motivation, our quality control system
can be subverted. A criminal investigation into Isratex's
business operations revealed that the company did, in fact,
engage in illegal activities to get around the quality
assurance protections and we know that these suits did not meet
contractual requirements.
Clearly, this experience demonstrates that there is room
for improvement. We have taken steps to effect that
improvement.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, I believe that the actions that
we have taken fully address the issues raised in these two
reports and demonstrate our commitment to ensuring that the
service member is provided with the equipment that affords the
intended level of protection.
The second question asked us to specify what types of
individual protective equipment are in DLA's inventory and
where they are located. We manage a wide range of individual
protective equipment items. Chief among those are battle dress
overgarments, black vinyl overshoes, chemical protective gloves
and the joint service lightweight integrated suit technology
chemical protective suit, which is the replacement for the
battle dress overgarment. These items are stored principally at
the Defense depots in Albany, Mechanicsburg, and San Joaquin.
The third question asked what quality control procedures
are in place for acceptance of individual protective equipment
from vendors. On our behalf, the Defense Contract Management
Agency sends its quality assurance representatives into our
manufacturing plants to evaluate the contractor's quality
systems; identify and evaluate all key high risk processes;
perform production audits on the outputs of high and moderate
risk processes; perform data analyses; verify all key
contractor processes, and finally, authorize shipment of the
completed items.
In addition, these critical items are subject to
specialized testing involving subjecting them either to actual
chemical agents or simulants designed to test their protective
capabilities. In addition, based on our experience with the
Isratex suits, we have issued a letter of instruction to
quality assurance representatives in the plants requiring
visual and dimensional inspections of each lot prior to
shipment while calling out specific defects that must be
emphasized during that inspection.
The fourth question asked us how DLA tracks shelf life of
individual protective equipment. Shelf life surveillance is the
responsibility of the military service which is the proponent
for each item. I would like to defer to Mr. Kinney on specific
questions you may have with regard to shelf life surveillance
on battle dress overgarments.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that the
Defense Logistics Agency takes very seriously its
responsibility to provide military services with individual
protective equipment that affords them the best available
protection. In our efforts to do so, we work closely with the
services and the Defense Contract Management Agency to ensure
that we take delivery of only product that meets the need fully
and that the level of protection provided by the equipment
retained in inventory is carefully monitored over time. Thank
you, sir.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, General.
[The prepared statement of General Mongeon follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Mr. Kinney.
Mr. Kinney. Yes, thank you. Good morning Mr. Chairman,
members. I am Robert Kinney, the Director of Individual
Protection at the Natick Soldier Center, U.S. Army Soldier and
Biological Chemical Command. I truly appreciate your invitation
to appear here today and express my gratitude to the members of
this committee for your interest in the welfare and protection
of our armed forces from chemical and biological attacks.
I am here representing the Natick Soldier Center because of
my personal technical background and responsibilities, as well
as the role Natick has with respect to individual protection.
As the Director of Individual Protection, my role is to lead
the science and technology programs and provide technical
expertise for the research development and engineering support
of individual survivability technology and products to include
chemical and biological percutaneous personal protection.
I am intimately familiar with the battle dress overgarment
and have had related personal technical responsibilities dating
back to the garment's inception. Natick was responsible for the
development of the battle dress overgarment, as well as the
generation of its specification. We are the engineering support
activity for this product for the Army, execute the stockpile
surveillance program and provide technical recommendations to
the product manager, soldier equipment, who is the life cycle
manager.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Kinney, if you would just move that mic a
little closer to you, I'm sorry. Thank you very much.
Mr. Kinney. In June 1999, we were contacted by agents from
the Defense Criminal Investigation Service concerning garments
manufactured by Isratex under contract DLA 100-92-C-0427. We
were requested to perform a quality inspection on a lot of 500
garments held in custody. We recommended that audit and
recommended to the product manager that these garments be set
aside for training purposes.
In March 2000, Natick and the Defense Supply Center
Philadelphia agreed to jointly conduct a quality audit on
garments manufactured under a separate contract, DLA 100-89-C-
0429, and the audit was conducted in May 2000. We jointly
concluded that garments manufactured under this contract be
removed from service and set aside for training purposes. The
specific results of these audits are contained in my recorded
testimony.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to emphasize the
Natick Soldier Center's commitment to the individual war
fighter. We are the technical experts which are part of a
crucial acquisition team providing the best technology for our
armed forces. And I welcome any questions you may have.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Kinney.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kinney follows:]
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Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General, I want to one more time go back to this press
conference that happened in February and General Glisson's
remarks that were made at that time and ask you a couple of
questions. Again, he said the 1989 lot had never been
questioned, there never was--they never had a single quality
control problem identified on the 1989 lot.
Another question, and how do you respond to the criticism
that the Army didn't move fast enough to remove these
potentially defective suits from the inventory to prevent them
from being issued?
Lieutenant General Glisson: I guess I would respond by
saying if we had any indication, any indication that we had
suits out there that would have potentially--that would have
been potentially dangerous to anyone in the Department of
Defense, we would have done that. We had none.
Now, I am just curious what ``any indication'' means
because in 1993, a criminal case was brought against the
manufacturer of these suits. I realize a formal inspection
wasn't requested at all for either of the 1992 or 1989 until
1995, but would not that have been an alert for such a large
batch of critical suits for our service personnel?
General Mongeon. If I could answer in a number of ways, the
first piece I would say is that with reference to the 1993
investigation that was ongoing, that investigation was centered
on the Isratex manufacturer that was in Puerto Rico and that
had to do with coveralls.
Ms. Schakowsky. I understand.
General Mongeon. In 1993, there was no indication
whatsoever that there was any problem with anything that was
being manufactured in West Virginia. In fact, up until the
1990's, Isratex had an outstanding record of producing numerous
items, technical items, complicated items for the Department of
Defense that I know had a very strong track record.
With regard to General Glisson's comments, he was referring
to the information that DSCP had provided him relative to the
analysis that was done in 1996 at the request of DCIS, where we
went in and did a grand lot sample of the 1992 Isratex BDOs. At
that time, again, there was no indication that there were any
issues with the 1989 BDOs. As a matter of fact, in 1991----
Ms. Schakowsky. What would those indications have been?
What made you assume that there were no problems with 1989,
especially my understanding is that the DLA had expressed
concern over those and that a decision was made not to, for it
sounds like reasons of $250,000, to inspect the 1989 batch.
General Mongeon. The inspection of the--first of all, what
would indicate any reasons, I'd like to go back to that. In
1991, DCIS came to us and said there are some potential
allegations against Isratex and the 1989 lots. We conducted a
full investigation of the 1989s with DCIS and looked at them to
include completely tearing apart the garments and cutting them
apart to look at within the seams to find out if there were any
issues. We went through that. DCIS was 100 percent with us on
inspection in 1991 of the 1989 contract. No major deficiencies
were found, no critical deficiencies were found, and in fact,
one minor deficiency was found and they were cleared from that
investigation, and that information we have provided in the
notebooks that we have provided to the committee.
Ms. Schakowsky. So your testimony is that there was a
complete inspection of that 1989 batch earlier?
General Mongeon. There was sample done based on the batch--
on the lots that were identified by DCIS in 1991, and that
sample was done and no deficiencies were found. So General
Glisson was basing his comments on the track record that we had
with the 1989 BDOs up until a point of when he was interviewed,
and he was talking about specifically the ones that were
suspect were the 1992s, and in fact, that's the ones that had
the grand lot sample.
Ms. Schakowsky. So when the DLA decided to set aside the
safety concerns that were raised by the IG in its request to
inspect the 1989 suits, what you're saying it wasn't just about
money, $250,000, it was because you felt that you had already
done that and that they were fine?
General Mongeon. Yes, ma'am. Not only had we already done
that, but when we, in discussions and in items that had been
provided to the committee, clearly in those discussions and in
the investigation, the investigation focused in on activities
of the Isratex that happened in 1992 and 1993 predominantly.
The 1989s were completely out of production by that time. That
was another aspect of when we could talk with DCIS about what
should be done. They eventually asked us to do a grand lot
sample of 1992s and we did the grand lot sample of 1992s. The
money that was referred to was for the grand lot sample of
1992. It was not a part of--anything to do with the 1989
sample. The sample that was requested was for 1992s, and that
was the grand lot sample that was conducted, and in fact, the
numbers that were quoted, the initial estimate was $250,000.
Eventually it cost about $70,000.
Ms. Schakowsky. So you're on record, what you're saying is
that despite what we have later concluded, that there were
problems with the 1989 batch, that you rejected doing any
further investigation in 1995 because you had confidence that
you had done it and that they were fine?
General Mongeon. In 1995, based on all the information we
had, based on any information that we would receive from the
field for quality deficiencies, we had no record of any
deficiencies for the 1989 suits.
Ms. Schakowsky. Now you know that to not be true, right?
Don't we as of, what month is it--the May 2000 conclusion is
quite different.
General Mongeon. It is not quite different. In the May
2000, what we agreed with Natick was to do a joint effort to
look at the 1989s. Through that joint effort we looked at those
and determined that there, in fact, were some critical defects
and that we recommended that they be used for training only. So
that is correct.
Ms. Schakowsky. So what's the difference? Why did you pass
up these critical defects and potentially sent our armed
personnel into pretty dangerous situations wearing them? And
now we find that there were critical problems.
General Mongeon. Again, back at the time, in reference to
General Glisson's comment, back in the time of 1996, that
assessment that was made on those uniforms by the standards
that were applied at that time----
Ms. Schakowsky. You said the 1989 batch was inspected
earlier than that, I thought.
General Mongeon. The 1989 batch on certain lots was
inspected in 1991 and were fully inspected and passed.
Ms. Schakowsky. And now that same batch was inspected and
found to have critical----
General Mongeon. Not the same batch, in the total
aggregate, which was about 600,000. That is not necessarily the
same lot. It is not necessarily----
Ms. Schakowsky. Do we have reason to believe that those
same suits which you gave a passing grade to and therefore they
were distributed were found now to be--to have critical
defects?
General Mongeon. The 1989s, in terms of the review that we
did with Natick, found critical defects, and we agreed with
that finding and we recommended they be used for training
purposes only, that is correct.
Ms. Schakowsky. So there was a mistake made?
General Mongeon. I would not categorize--in 1996, I can
only speculate to say that there was a mistake made in 1996. I
cannot say there was a mistake made with the information that
was available and the tests that were done.
Ms. Schakowsky. My understanding is that both the 1989
suits and the 1992 suits were supposed to go--undergo annual
inspections after they had aged 5 years; is that right?
General Mongeon. Yes, ma'am, that's correct, and they did.
Ms. Schakowsky. And they were annual inspections for what?
General Mongeon. Annual surveillance, and I would defer
that question to Mr. Kinney because they do the annual
surveillance, but those annual surveillances were done and
those suits were included.
Mr. Kinney. The Stockpile Surveillance Program is a program
that was initiated to investigate whether or not we could
extend the shelf life of the garments. We have extensive
knowledge of the types of materials that these uniforms have
been made out of. The predecessor to the battle dress
overgarment was the chemical protective overgarment, which was
manufactured out of the same types of materials.
The 5-year shelf life, we were very confident that the
garments would meet the 5-year shelf life, and the extent of
the testing conducted is very different from the types of
testing that you would see in a quality assurance audit. The
focus of it is to look at whether or not there's any advanced
degradation due to aging, advanced aging while the product is
sitting in storage. So you're looking for things like fungus,
rot, mildew, the deterioration as a result of something like
that.
Ms. Schakowsky. So this would have nothing to do with
looking for critical defects in the suits?
Mr. Kinney. As part of that investigation, there is a
minimal visual inspection looking for effects of shelf life,
whether or not there is fungus or rot, and in so doing, if
there are any obvious defects that are noted, that that would
be taken into account, but the assumption was that the
government bought quality products in accordance with the
specification, and so the inspection really was focusing on
shelf life.
Ms. Schakowsky. So if you saw open seams or----
Mr. Kinney. If we saw open seams, we would obviously report
it, and in the case of the inspections to date, I am not aware
of any critical manufacturing defects that we have identified
as a result of the surveillance program.
Ms. Schakowsky. And yet when your team, just a few weeks
ago, looked at those, you didn't even get through 25 percent of
the samples before you found enough defects to terminate the
inspection; is that correct?
Mr. Kinney. You're referring to the 1989----
Ms. Schakowsky. No. I'm talking about the----
Mr. Kinney. The inspection that we just conducted in May of
this year?
Ms. Schakowsky. Yes.
Mr. Kinney. We executed in conjunction with Defense, DSCP,
we executed the evaluation and we decided to stop the
evaluation after we looked at the first 125 suits because we
had reached the failure criteria, I believe it was a total of 2
critical, 73 major and 289 minor defects.
Ms. Schakowsky. And that's because you were looking for
something entirely different than you look at on your annual
inspection?
Mr. Kinney. Let me explain. A quality inspection is a very
detailed inspection, and a lot of these critical defects, for
instance, an open seam, they're not easy to find. It takes a
trained inspector to look for these types of defects. You have
a detailed table of operations within the specification that is
many pages long, and it can take--it can take between an hour
and 2 hours to actually inspect one suit utilizing these
procedures. In the case of open seams that we saw, the critical
defects that we saw in this inspection, they were on the inside
of the garment on the foam liner which is a hung liner inside
of the garment. So it takes--it is not something that is
readily apparent. You don't see a big gaping hole that you can
spot immediately.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you very much.
Mr. Shays. General Mongeon, what can you tell me that will
build confidence that there are adequate procedures being
applied to all protective equipment in DLA inventory?
General Mongeon. In terms of the--in terms of the quality
assurance, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Shays. You know, where they are and so on.
General Mongeon. In terms of what we are doing with the
quality assurance as the new suits are coming on line, we're
working that very closely with the PM, which is the Marines. We
have issued letters to the quality assurance individuals in the
manufacturing plants, very specifically detailing that no lots
are to be passed until they have visual and end item
inspection. In addition to that, we have sent teams out to the
manufacturing plants to work with quality assurance people,
that they look for specific things that potentially could be
major defects.
In addition to that, there is product testing that is done
by the manufacturer, and we do separate manufacturing testing
verifying those findings. If there are any differences between
the two, we refer those back to the program manager of the
Marines and they take a comprehensive look at that.
Finally, the Marines on their own have an independent lab
that do inspection of all of the new uniforms of the JS list
that are coming on board, and this is done by an independent
lab, and those inspections are done, and that is also for the
chemical simulant testing, and then, in addition to that, they
are pulling individual samples from individual lots so that
every lot will be controlled and can be tested on a periodic
basis to ensure their viability.
Mr. Shays. I was expecting you, given that the Inspector
General said you've already done the wall-to-wall inventory, to
tell us the results of that. So let me, since you didn't do it
voluntarily, let me ask you the results.
General Mongeon. In terms of the wall-to-wall inventories,
those have been completed. All of the defective BDOs have been
accounted for. They are segregated, they are shrink-wrapped,
they are clearly marked with safety and placard and they are--
every measure has been taken that those will not be issued.
Mr. Shays. And how many suits are we talking about?
General Mongeon. Approximately 334,000 suits in the depots.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you this question: How specifically
will you strengthen acceptance standards to avoid corrupt
vendors to like Isratex in the future? What are you going to be
doing about that?
General Mongeon. The comments that I just made about the
quality assurance that we are working with the Marines covers
all of those areas and have been significantly strengthened.
Again, the first one being the letter we have issued out to the
representatives of the Defense Contract Management Agency
telling them specifically that no items will be approved unless
there is end item inspection, and then we gave them a specific
list of what to look for. We're sending a team out to all of
those manufacturers to work with those quality assurance
representatives to make sure that they know what to look for
with those deficiencies.
Again, the manufacturer is required to do quality assurance
inspections and testing. We are also doing that independently.
If there are any disconnects between those two, we refer that
to the PM, to the Marines.
And finally, the Marines are doing testing by an
independent lab for the chemical protection and also pulling
from each lot to ensure that they have a capability to go back
and test any one of those lots, and they're doing random tests,
extensive testing and examination of those lots, even after
they have been issued.
Mr. Shays. Let me, even though Ms. Schakowsky has made
reference to this, and I want to ask you specifically, the IG
in page 9 said the Defense Logistics Agency initially
segregated the BDOs that have been delivered under the 1992
contract preventing operational distribution. However, 3 months
later they concluded the BDOs were serviceable and returned
them to regular stock, leading to the audit find that I
discussed previously. Just explain that to me in simple terms.
General Mongeon. In approximately 1995, DCIS came to us and
asked us to conduct a grand lot audit. We agreed to do that at
that time and we went out and did the grand lot audit.
Mr. Shays. And the grand lot audit means----
General Mongeon. It means we took--by standard, we took a
large sampling, in this case, 500 BDOs, that was statistically
sound for the total number of items that were in the inventory,
and that's why we took a grand lot as opposed to a smaller
sample, and we did that sample. There's no question that
deficiencies were found, major and minor, but no critical
deficiencies were found, and at the time when they went through
and did that analysis, they made the decision to release those
from segregation and hold, which is condition code L to
condition code A, and to put those BDOs back in stock. That
decision was made then.
Mr. Shays. And you used the term ``critical'' like I would
use ``minor,'' ``major,'' ``critical'' under the PAT?
General Mongeon. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. Now, under what basis could you make a
determination that there weren't any critical? I mean, what
testing did you do to come to that conclusion?
General Mongeon. We tested that. We went through and they
did all the examinations by standard. In addition to that, we
also did chemical simulant testing on them, and they passed the
chemical simulant testing.
Mr. Shays. On every one?
General Mongeon. No, on a sample.
Mr. Shays. And so, explain to me why did you get different
results?
General Mongeon. Different results from?
Mr. Shays. The Natick guy.
General Mongeon. Sir, I cannot explain the difference in
results. What I can tell you is that recognizing that we had a
difference of opinion and different results, today, anytime an
issue comes up with BDOs, we work that collectively with
Natick.
Mr. Shays. I'm sorry, when you were talking, I was
beginning to get lost here a second, so I don't mind if you
would respond again to my question.
General Mongeon. Yes, sir. I cannot specifically----
Mr. Shays. I'm asking why Natick came to a different result
than you all did. Is it that they used a tougher standard?
General Mongeon. I think in terms--it is a judgment. It is
a view of the two different inspectors 3 years later. I really
would only be speculating to tell you what the reason was. The
only thing I can tell you is that from that difference that we
do joint inspections now, so we do not have that problem in the
future, as was indicated by the 1989 Isratex inspection that we
did jointly to avoid this problem of having two different views
of the BDOs.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Kinney, could you add anything here?
Mr. Kinney. I think if you take a look at the results from
all of the inspections of the Isratex garments, one thing comes
out loud and clear is that they--there are much too many
defects that these products are representative of inferior
quality, and I think that is consistent, and if you look at the
numbers of defects, I can't explain why we found critical
defects and DSCP didn't in their 1996 inspection. I was not
there. I just can't explain it.
Mr. Shays. But you found a lot of critical defects.
Mr. Kinney. We found 7 critical defects out of
approximately 96 suits in our inspection in 1999.
Mr. Shays. It used to be if a manufacturer was making a
car, they anticipated the suppliers would give them so many
defective products, and they used to have large inventories. I
mean, we had our practices and then we tried to do what Japan,
with their best businesses practices, they had no inventory,
and they demanded 100 percent. They allowed no defect, and if a
supplier gave them defect, they didn't get the product. And
what amazes me is that that's a car. Here we're talking about
protective gear, and it seems like we're in the dark ages.
And so when I first got involved in the mask issue and we
were looking at high numbers, it was so high I couldn't even
contemplate it, and it's obviously with the defect and the
criminality that existed here, it boggles the mind. I was
reading what the defects were. Some of them were visual, and
they were quite extensive and quite serious. I am not even
going to read them because the terms, I'll blow them in the
reading of them.
But I would just want to conclude and invite Ms. Levy up.
Ms. Levy, you have been sworn in, if you would just come up
and sit next to Mr. Kinney. It's not my practice to have a
debate here, but I do want to make sure that the record is
accurate, because we depend on this record for recommendations
and so on, and when Ms. Schakowsky was asking General Mongeon
some questions, I want to make sure that you, in your capacity
as Defense Criminal Investigative Service of the Office of IG,
whether you would just want to clarify any point or put any
point on the record.
Ms. Levy. Well, I would like to clarify that in January
1995, we did notify DSCP that we had concerns about both the
1989 and the 1992 contract, and at that time we made an oral
request that both--that the goods from both contracts be
segregated in code L, meaning that they would not be
distributed.
Mr. Shays. And that's January 1995?
Ms. Levy. January 1995, that's correct, and originally DSCP
did contact the Columbus depot and ask that the items from both
contracts be segregated. At that time the Defense Distribution
Depot in Columbus came back with an estimated cost of $245,500
to segregate the goods, and we made three additional written
requests concerning the audit. And in all of these requests, we
identified both the 1992 contract and the 1989 contract being
of some concern. In fact, we identified what some of the
concerns were based upon witness testimony from having
interviewed people like Isratex in West Virginia.
Mr. Shays. So the first was an oral request in January
1995, and then there were written requests that were that same
year?
Ms. Levy. There were written requests, oh, spanning from
August 1995 until September 1995.
Mr. Shays. And what were the concerns requested in those
written documents?
Ms. Levy. I'd have to refer to them.
Mr. Shays. OK. But the bottom line is that in your oral
statement is you suspected criminality and defective suits,
correct?
Ms. Levy. Yes, on both contracts, that's correct.
Mr. Shays. And did the letters make those same points?
Ms. Levy. It referred--our letters referred to both
contracts being concerned that defective materials were being
provided under the contract.
Mr. Shays. And this is in January 1995?
Ms. Levy. 1995 and subsequent to that.
Mr. Shays. General, is there anything----
Brigadier General Mongeon. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. What would you disagree----
General Mongeon. I would just respectfully disagree. As a
matter of fact, we provided for the committee, we provided
those letters. You can read those letters. On October 12, 1995,
DCIS' letter requested specifically that the 1992 Isratex BDOs
be included in the grand lot. Those letters are readily
available. You have those letters, sir, and I would just ask
you to read the letters.
Mr. Shays. So your recollection is this, did this
conversation in January, do you recall or anyone in your
organization recall the January conversation?
General Mongeon. Sir, I would totally agree that in the
timeframe of August 1995, that there was dialog between DCIS
and some of the people in Philadelphia with regard to the
ongoing investigation in the West Virginia plant and that
during that time references were made to both contracts but in
further detail as was developed. When employees were asked, as
an example, when were these critical events happening, they
were saying that these events were happening in 1992, 1993
timeframe, the 1989s were completely delivered by that
timeframe. It was our understanding that DCIS was focusing in
on the 1992 lots because those are where the information was
coming for what they potentially saw as criminal activity.
Mr. Shays. Yeah, but we're dealing with corrupt people. I
mean, how would you characterize an organization and employees
of an organization that would deliver knowingly defective
equipment? How would you characterize that?
General Mongeon. Sir, I would characterize that as totally
unacceptable.
Mr. Shays. Unacceptable as that's the limit to it? I mean
unacceptable, please don't do it again?
General Mongeon. No. Unacceptable in terms of that's
fraudulent activity and we would not do business with them.
Mr. Shays. But, see, I view it differently. I view it as
risking the lives of the men and women who might wear those
suits and then risking the mission of the men and women who are
wearing those suits and then risking the outcome of any
potential engagement and so, you know, that to me is like
telling your enemies your secrets. It's extraordinarily serious
that that is more than unacceptable, and therefore, I have a
hard time understanding how you could have a comfort level that
fraudulent people should be believed.
General Mongeon. I was not indicating that fraudulent
people should be believed, sir. What I had said earlier was
that up until that time we had no indication that the 1989
suits were defective.
Mr. Shays. I guess what I would wonder is even if you
thought that a company had--that if the IG was suspecting that
there was some fraudulent delivery of goods by a company, I
guess in my own mind I'd say, well, should we feel comfortable
with previous deliveries? I mean that's the way my mind would
work. So, all of a sudden it became crooked?
But at any rate, Ms. Levy, is there anything that you would
just want to add? I mean I am not expecting to resolve,
because, General, you said look at the letters and we'll look
at the letters. We're not going to resolve it today but I just
want to make sure that before we go to the next panel that we
have put on the record what we need to.
Ms. Levy. Well, one thing that's a bit confusing is that
these contracts, production is run under these contracts
concurrently. So given that the 1989 contract was being
produced during the same time the 1992 contract was, we had no
reason to believe that Isratex was handling the contracts
differently.
Mr. Shays. Just to be clear, so in my foolish mind here I
was assuming that these contracts were in 1989 delivered in
1989. These 1989 contracts were still being delivered in
subsequent years?
Ms. Levy. The contracts overlapped.
Mr. Shays. Right. In other words, I said----
Ms. Levy. Delivery was still being made on the 1989
contract during the time of the 1992.
Mr. Shays. So we're not talking about a 1989 batch, we're
talking about 1989 contract?
Ms. Levy. That's correct. And we did throughout our
investigation maintain that we had--we suspected that the same
thing was happening on the 1992 contract as was happening on
the 1989 contract, and we questioned the integrity of all chem
suits being produced by Isratex.
Mr. Shays. OK. General, your comment is you thought it was
one and not the other and that's what the record states. So
we'll just followup on that. It's just--if you're telling me
that a product is still being made, it's not a 1989 batch but
the product is still being made by a corrupt company with
corrupt employees, you know, I don't know if my mind would work
to say, well, they're going to be honest with one batch but
dishonest with another. This wasn't, General, in my view, this
wasn't that they had defective machinery and so there's
machinery in one line-up. This was a company ethic that was
willing to cheat the government and risk the lives of our
soldiers.
So we'll check the documents and we'll just try to sort
that out. But General, your comment is on the record and that's
what you believe to be true, and so that's what the record will
state.
Mr. Allen, do you have any comments that you want to make?
Mr. Allen. No, sir.
Mr. Shays. General, is there any closing questions you wish
we had asked or any comments you would like to make?
General Mongeon. No, sir.
Mr. Shays. OK. Thank you. Mr. Kinney.
Mr. Kinney. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do have one point.
Comments have been made with respect to the defective products
where our soldiers were going to die, and from a technical
perspective the NBC, nuclear, biological and chemical, arena
with respect to personal protection specifically in products
like the BDO, the approach, this is my opinion, the approach is
very conservative from the risk, which is a very severe threat,
to the types of engineering and research and development that
are utilized all the way up to the types of testing and the
quality assurance. Because of the severe nature of the threat
and of chemical and biological warfare, we take a very
conservative approach.
And the issue with respect to the garments from Isratex,
they were inferior quality products and the government should
clearly have not procured them, but as far as whether or not
they should be issued to troops, I think it's clear that they
still--these garments still provide a significant level of
protection. And when you take into account things such as the
severe nature of the threat, those garments would probably have
provided a significant level of protection in most threat
environments. The severest environments, I think you would
probably have problems, but----
Mr. Shays. Mr. Kinney, I wish you hadn't said that, and I
wish I had the ability to take it off the record. In one sense,
I like your candidness and I like witnesses to say what they
think, but it just opens up another whole line of questioning
that you really don't--what is your expertise?
Mr. Kinney. I am a chemical engineer by training.
Mr. Shays. OK. So we purchase suits and equipment that were
supposed to meet certain requirements. Aside from the fraud
issue, which is, I could agree, and the fraud issue, in other
words, they were able in essence to bid on a contract, and
because they didn't make it the way they had to according to
specs, they could cheat the government, but they also cheated
other companies that might have wanted to bid on this that knew
that they were going to be honest and weren't going to cut
corners and probably had to bid higher. I am making the
assumption there were other companies that could make the
product. I could be wrong.
But what I am uncomfortable with is that I guess you want
me to know that even if they were defective they probably did
some good. But my mind works and says that's like, you know,
saying we're going to put a clip in a gun and instead of it
having 10 bullets, it's going to have 3 and this person is
being attacked and they're going to get three shots and three
shots is better than no shots. If that's your point, yes, but
there were three shots they didn't get to fire and in the
meantime he could have been killed or she could have been
killed. So that is why I'm uncomfortable with your logic.
Mr. Kinney. That was the point I was trying to make. Under
normal circumstances I would not recommend using those
products--that product, but if you were in a situation, and
program managers, product managers have to deal with issues of
risk every day on what type of product go to the field, and if
the question came up whether or not I issue this product or not
because I don't have anything to issue, my recommendation----
Mr. Shays. Was that the issue? Did we not have anything to
issue?
Mr. Kinney. I'm not aware. I was just trying to make the
point with respect to the fact that----
Mr. Shays. It's an uncomfortable feeling thinking that you
might be in a circumstance or somebody be in the circumstance
where they would have risked the lives of our men and women,
and I can understand why you wouldn't want that hanging on your
shoulders, but I just am uncomfortable with your point. The
bottom line is we paid for a certain quality, and the men and
women who get those equipment need to know that they work.
Mr. Kinney. Absolutely.
Mr. Shays. And there are some of the men and women who
would have gotten it would have found that their equipment
wouldn't have worked, and they have to have faith in the
military, that the military has the quality control to make
sure that they have the equipment that will do the job. And so
I think that's a dangerous attitude to have frankly.
Your point, and I'll take it from the best side, your point
is that that equipment is better than nothing. We'll leave it
at that.
OK. Is there any other comment that anybody would like to
make on the panel? Well, we will get to the third panel. I
thank you very much.
Our next panel is comprised of five members--participants
who will testify, Dr. Anna Johnson-Winegar, Deputy Assistant to
the Secretary of Defense, Chemical-Biological Defense,
Department of Defense; Major General John Sylvester, Deputy
Chief of Staff for Training, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine
Command; Major General Ernest Robbins, Civil Engineer,
Headquarters, the U.S. Air Force; Rear Admiral David Stone,
Deputy Director of Surface Warfare Division, U.S. Navy; Major
General Paul M. Lee, Commander of Marine Corps Materiel
Command. I'd ask you to all stay standing just so we can swear
you in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Thank you. Note for the record that all of our
witnesses have responded in the affirmative. I think that we
want to try to--I know we want to try to accommodate you,
General Robbins. I believe that you need to be out of here by
1:30; is that correct?
General Robbins. If possible.
Mr. Shays. That will happen. And let me say to all of you,
Dr. Winegar, you're a civilian working in the Defense
Department, correct? The rest of you have served your country
in the military, and in many cases heroically, but certainly in
every case gallantly. And I am a Peace Corps volunteer. I'm not
in the military but I have a job to do here and I just hope you
understand my job, and in the end we'll come to what we need to
come to. So we'll get a good result out of this hearing and we
will move forward.
I think given that we still have about 40 minutes until you
have to leave, General Robbins, we'll just go down the order
that we have, and given that we have five witnesses, we'll try
to stick to the 5 minutes but I truly will roll over another 5,
and you use it, and General Robbins, if we have a problem I'll
just let you go early. So we'll be able to accommodate you.
Dr. Winegar. The thing you have on these gentlemen here is
that you are a doctor and you should take great pride in that,
too.
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Shays. Aside from your wonderful service to the DOD.
STATEMENTS OF ANNA JOHNSON-WINEGAR, DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE, DEPARTMENT
OF DEFENSE; MAJOR GENERAL JOHN SYLVESTER, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF
FOR TRAINING, U.S. ARMY TRAINING AND DOCTRINE COMMAND,
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; MAJOR GENERAL EARNEST ROBBINS, THE CIVIL
ENGINEER, HEADQUARTERS U.S. AIR FORCE, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE;
REAR ADMIRAL DAVID M. STONE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, SURFACE WARFARE
DIVISION, U.S. NAVY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AND MAJOR GENERAL
PAUL M. LEE, JR., COMMANDER, MARINE CORPS MATERIEL COMMAND,
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Dr. Anna
Johnson-Winegar, the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of
Defense for Chemical and Biological Defense. I appreciate the
opportunity to present my testimony today and answer your
questions on this very important topic.
Let me begin by emphasizing that the Department of Defense
takes the threat of chemical and biological warfare very
seriously, and I believe that it is incumbent upon all of us to
focus our resources and our energies toward developing the very
best defenses against chemical-biological agents so that our
military can perform their mission in any kind of an
environment, including a potentially contaminated one.
As you know, in accordance with Public Law 130-160 my
office is designated as the focal point for coordination and
integration of the Department's chemical and biological
research, development and acquisition programs. Since
implementation of the law, we have submitted a single
consolidated budget request for these research, development and
acquisition efforts, and we feel that this has led to improved
effectiveness, better execution and significantly improved
jointness across the services.
However, consumable chemical-biological defense items and
maintenance of these fielded items are managed by the
individual services in accordance with their Title X
responsibilities and the services' desire to manage their own
operation and maintenance funds. No defensewide funding exists
for chemical-biological defense logistics and maintenance. OSD
is, therefore, limited to tracking the status of chemical-
biological defense logistics readiness and sustainment programs
in the individual services.
As you are also probably aware, there are a number of other
offices within the Department that have some oversight
responsibilities for some aspects of chemical-biological
defense. These include, to name a few, the Deputy Under
Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology, the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, the Assistant to the
Secretary of Defense for Civil Support, the Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy, the Joint Staff and others.
With specific regard to the DOD IG report and testimony
that I was unable to provide details of the services' actions
and felt that my responsibility is limited to equipment
acquisition, I would like to summarize some actions that have
been taken by my office. You have already referred to the fact
that the Joint Service Materiel Group established a Joint
Service Mask Technical Working Group to evaluate issues in the
hotline audit reports. They recommended that the services
conduct a 2-year retail mask surveillance pilot study. Based on
the potential severity of these findings, the Joint Service
Integration Group was tasked by my office to examine the
findings from the user perspective.
The Joint Service Integration Groups PAT, Process Action
Team, reviewed the pilot program and provided their final
report in November 1999. I have subsequently forwarded copies
of that report to the Joint NBC Defense Board for distribution
to senior operational personnel in each of the services. Per my
direction, the results of this report will be incorporated into
the NBC Defense Logistics Support Plan, again with distribution
and participation from senior logistics commanders in each of
the services.
I have furthermore directed a validation of current field
protective mask fit factor criteria. I plan to review detailed
plans provided by each of the services which will address their
individual actions to address the test rate failures seen in
the masks. As was reported last week to the Deputy Secretary at
the Counterproliferation Review Council, the global status of
resources and training systems and a joint monthly readiness
review have assessed that compliance in the aggregate is high
and noted that ongoing initiatives within the services will
continue to strengthen unit level chemical-biological defense
reporting. However, they did conclude that chemical-biological
defense reporting occurs through readiness channels rather than
functional channels within the Department.
Currently the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Readiness and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Policy, Strategy and Threat Reduction, along with the Joint
Staff, have primary oversight for chemical-biological
readiness. However, with the recently approved new positions in
my office, I am prepared to take a more active, more aggressive
role in assuring chemical-biological defense readiness, in
addition to maintaining my primary responsibilities, which are
those in the research, development and acquisition arena.
I look forward to continuing improvements in this critical
program of chemical-biological defense.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Johnson-Winegar follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you for your statement.
General.
General Sylvester. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee,
I am Major General John B. Sylvester. I am the Deputy Chief of
Staff for Training in the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine
Command [TRADOC], from Fort Monroe, VA. I appreciate the
opportunity to represent TRADOC and the U.S. Army and provide
testimony on this important subject.
TRADOC has two primary missions: To prepare the Army for
war and to be the architect of its future. TRADOC ensures
synchronization of doctrine, training, leader development,
organizational structure and materiel readiness and ensures the
Army is the best that it can be and that our soldiers are
trained and ready for any operation anywhere any time.
TRADOC, therefore myself representing TRADOC, am
responsible for institutional, unit and self-developmental
training programs for all soldiers, leaders, civilians and
units across our service. We provide a progressive,
developmental and lifelong learning experience for leaders and
soldiers that complements and enhances and supports their
experiences in the field. My direct scope of responsibility is
staff supervision of all of our schools, to include the U.S.
Army Chemical School at Fort Leonard Wood, MO, as well as
individual training of active duty, reserve component and
international military student personnel as well as providing
support to units in the field through training support doctrine
and also our capstone training program, known as the combat
training centers, which provide support across our force.
I'm a combat veteran. I've been deployed into combat in
combat zones on four different times in almost 33 years of
continuous active duty. I've commanded at every level from
platoon through assistant division command, and I have operated
as an operations officer up through theater level command, and,
sir, I stand ready to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Sylvester follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you.
General.
General Robbins. Mr. Chairman, good afternoon. I appreciate
the opportunity to come before you today and discuss the
Department of the Air Force's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical
Passive Defense Program. I thank you for your continued support
of the NBC defense program. I have a brief oral statement and
with your permission I will submit the complete statement for
the record.
First, I want to explain the Air Force organizational
structure which supports our NBC defense program. The Deputy
Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations, referred to as our
XO, is responsible for the Air Force's Counterproliferation
Program. Nuclear, biological and chemical passive defense is
one of the four pillars of our counterproliferation policy. So
the XO is the principal Air Force officer responsible for our
participation in the OSD Chemical and Biological Defense
Program. The XO is the Air Force representative on the Joint
NBC Defense Board.
As the Air Force Civil Engineer, I support the XO. I am the
Air Force representative on the Joint Service Integration Group
and I am responsible for the nonmedical training and equipment
aspects of the Air Force NBC Passive Defense Program. I
represent the Air Force in joint NBC training doctrine and
requirements development. I'm supported in this effort by the
Director of Supply, who is responsible for individual
protective equipment management as part of the overall Air
Force supply system, including shelf life management.
The Defense Planning Guidance recently described the NBC
threat as a likely condition of future wars, and the Air Force
is committed to ensuring that our forces can and will survive
to conduct sustained mission operations in such an NBC
environment. In order to accomplish this we have established a
comprehensive program.
The Air Force participates with OSD and the Joint NBC
Defense Board for research, development and initial acquisition
of avoidance and detection, decontamination, collective
protection and individual protection equipment. We work with
the other services and OSD to identify joint requirements to
meet future threats and to ensure the safety of all DOD forces.
With congressional support we have seen funding for these
programs increase in recent years to meet the growing threat.
Each service is responsible for sustainment and maintenance
of their equipment as well as for training our respective
personnel. Within available resources we prioritize our
requirements to reduce risks and to ensure we provide
protection to our personnel in high and medium threat
locations.
The Air Force's NBC Defense Sustainment Program provides
operation and maintenance funding for protective ensembles and
masks, protection and decontamination equipment, medical
supplies, collective protection systems and training. Like the
other services, we are currently transitioning from older
equipment to newer, lighter, more effective equipment and are
adjusting our training as we bring this new equipment into the
inventory.
The Air Force requires all military and emergency essential
civilian personnel stationed in or deployable to high and
medium threat locations to receive annual NBC defense training.
This training includes classroom and hands on instruction on
detection and decontamination equipment and procedures,
protective clothing, mask component familiarization, inspection
and wear.
The Air Force enhanced the protective mask portion of
training in 1998 by implementing the mask fit test, which
improves survivability and increases the individual airman's
confidence. The Air Force established a robust training course
of instruction on mask fit test operations at our technical
school with the Army at Fort Leonard Wood, MO and at Brooks Air
Force Base, TX. Technicians there provide instruction and
perform fit test training for unit level personnel.
Equipment maintenance checks and services are critical
elements of our NBC defense program, especially for individual
protective equipment. Frequent inspections and maintenance of
masks are required to ensure their reliability. Maintenance and
inspections are conducted on Air Force protective masks every 6
months during peacetime and every 7 days during contingency
operations. Except for visual procedures outlined in the mask
technical orders, the Air Force has no inherent capability to
perform detailed quantitative masks inspections.
The need for this capability led us to participate in a
Joint Service Mask Program sponsored by the Marines. Based on
the Joint Service Mask Working Group's recommendations and its
review of the 1994 DOD IG report focusing on mask maintenance,
the Air Force initiated a rewrite of our technical orders. This
rewrite, which is scheduled for completion in August of this
summer, enhances procedures to tighten loose front voicemitters
and to clean the mask, it increases emphasis on individual
inspections and clarifies the responsibility for mask care and
maintenance. The Air Force is also reviewing and updating
various instructions and lesson plans to improve procedures for
mask maintenance and inspection.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your
strong support of the overall OSD and Air Force NBC Passive
Defense Program. We believe it is an aggressive program that
capitalizes on cooperation among the services to develop and
procure new high-tech protective equipment. We believe our
sustainment and training programs are meeting the most pressing
needs of our forces and that we carefully balance fiscal
reality, equipment shortfalls and risks. Our goal, like yours,
is to ensure Air Force men and women are protected with the
very best equipment.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of General Robbins follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, General.
Admiral stone.
Admiral Stone. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, distinguished
members of the subcommittee. On behalf of Secretary Danzig, I
would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear here
today to discuss the Navy's efforts to provide, maintain and
train with specialized individual protective equipment.
Unquestionably, the integrated performances of these items are
essential to ensure we can successfully operate in contaminated
chemical and biological environments.
As a matter of background, I am surface warfare officer,
having commanded the Spruance class destroyer the USS John
Hancock from 1991 to 1993. I was stationed overseas from 1994
to 1999, with at sea assignments as Commander of the United
States Middle East Force and Commander of Destroyer Squadron
50, home ported in Manama, Bahrain; later as the Chief of
Staff/Commander of the Sixth Fleet, located in Gaeta, Italy;
and most recently have served as the Commander of NATO's
Immediate Reaction Force, Standing Naval Force, Mediterranean,
during Operation Allied Force in the Adriatic. My current
office, which is the Surface Warfare Directorate on the Navy
staff, serves as the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Agent
for Chem-Bio Defense, and in that capacity, we coordinate
relevant Navy programmatic and operational issues.
As you are well aware, this is a complex effort involving
multiple warfare areas and claimants that directly impact fleet
operational readiness and warfighting sustainability. The
unique aspects posed by the myriad of chem-bio threats presents
us with incredible challenges, both ashore and afloat.
As a proactive partner in the Joint Chem-Bio Defense
Program, we've made significant progress and continue to work
closely with the other services and OSD on a broad front.
I'm submitting a more detailed written response to your
committee as formal testimony.
Today I plan to provide you details on the status of
important personnel protection initiatives and related efforts
in support of the Joint Service Chem-Bio Defense Program. In
particular I will address individual protective equipment and
associated testing, training and maintenance evolutions used to
verify equipment will perform as advertised without
compromising personal safety.
The goal of the Navy Chem-Bio Defense Program is to deter
the use of chemical and biological weapons used against U.S.
allies and coalition forces by utilizing capabilities to deny
an adversary significant military advantage from their use.
From a deterrence perspective, essential capabilities need to
include the requirement to survive an initial attack and
continue operations in a contaminated environment.
The mission of our Navy is to conduct prompt and sustained
combat operations from the sea in support of national
objectives. The Navy ensures that deployed units are outfitted
with appropriate individual protective equipment.
Based on the concerns expressed by your committee, we
acknowledge the importance of inventory management and materiel
condition of our chem-bio equipment. Since the first DOD IG
reports regarding the deficiencies in the inventory process
were issued in 1994, the Navy has consistently reviewed its
procedures for inventory control, requisitions and
organizational functions to ensure that we are on track.
As a follow on to various IG reports, the Navy has
addressed the mask surveillance issue with Commander Destroyer
Squadron 28, conducting surveillance of the ships earlier this
year in Norfolk, VA. The fleet is also preparing to release an
updated message that provides important guidance and reinforces
the requirement for conducting proper periodic maintenance.
Additionally, since February of this year, a pilot program has
been under development by CINCLANTFLT with the goal of
assisting ships in their predeployment mask testing.
The Navy agrees that mask inspection and fit testing is an
integral part of operational readiness. Studies have been
conducted over the past several years to ascertain materiel
problems with the MCU mask series. Random surveillance has
taken place to assess the conditions of the masks. We are
satisfied that our surveillance efforts have provided us good
confidence of the materiel integrity of the masks. However,
increased emphasis on individual protection equipment
maintenance is essential to ensure that these items will
function as advertised.
With regard to shipboard stowage of individual protective
equipment, we have reviewed previous Joint Service Integration
Group recommendations and have directed operational units to
ensure compliance with existing stowage procedures.
On the training side, it is critical that all forces,
afloat and ashore, be intimately familiar with the use of
individual protective equipment. Fleet units conduct chem-bio
drills and exercises to train and evaluate sailors in the use
of our protective gear. Ultimately, commanding officers are
responsible for chem-bio readiness of their commands. Navy
units conduct basic, intermediate and advanced training
exercises as part of the training and readiness cycle prior to
deployment.
During the basic training phase, CBR-D training exercises
are often overseen by the appropriate type commander staff and
may involve additional unit training by specialists from an
afloat training group. During the intermediate and advanced
phases of the training cycles, combat readiness is reinforced
through composite training units and numbered fleet exercises.
The exercises conducted by deploying battle groups and
amphibious readiness groups during these predeployment periods
are designed to meet fleet commander in chief training
requirements for forces in the area that they will be deployed.
I have recently released a Chief of Naval Operations
message to Navy commands reiterating the vital importance of
proper maintenance, training and readiness of all chem-bio
individual protective equipment, particularly protective masks.
This message lays the groundwork for follow-on discussions at
our upcoming damage control chem-bio defense conference, which
is scheduled for September of this year in the Norfolk area.
In summary, I believe the Navy has a chem-bio defense
program in place to protect our warfighters. As my partners on
this panel have indicated, our mutual efforts form an integral
part of this Nation's chem-bio defense posture. Of paramount
importance is my commitment to you to provide our sailors the
best individual protective gear available as well as the
aggressive leadership and training and monitoring necessary for
meeting the difficult mission challenges ahead.
Thank you, sir, for this opportunity to present the Navy's
position on this very important topic. I look forward to
addressing any questions you may have at this time.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Stone follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, Admiral.
General.
General Lee. Good morning, distinguished members of the
committee.
Mr. Shays. Let me just make sure that mic is on. You want
to tap it. Yeah, it's dead. Why don't you see if Admiral
Stone's mic is working.
General Lee. Let me start again. Is that better, sir?
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
General Lee. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, distinguished
members of the committee. My name is Major General Paul Lee. I
am the Commanding General of the Marine Corps's Materiel
Command. My job is readiness. My job is in the equipment of the
U.S. Marine Corps. I have been designated by the Commandant as
the responsible agent for life cycle management of all ground
combat equipment and in particular, with the subject equipment
of this particular committee, the individual equipment, the
nuclear-biological equipment that is issued to our Marines,
both ground and air. This means that I have the responsibility
for the reliability and the maintainability of all equipment
and for any new acquisitions that the U.S. Marine Corps may be
doing in its joint environment for all of the services.
As well, I am concerned about the training because that's
all part of it and the kinds of training manuals and
maintenance manuals and their adequacy for all of our forces.
My job is to maintain continuous surveillance and to make sure
that that gear remains ready, that the Marines who handle it
know how to handle it, and that those maintenance specialists
can make that happen. We have placed responsibility in materiel
command and we have provided it with the sufficient tools to
maintain that oversight throughout the Corps, to make things
happen quickly as they need to happen.
There are five areas that I will be able to answer
questions and I welcome questions in areas of concern with NBC.
I mentioned very briefly about training manuals and our
training--and our tables of organization, the people that do
the work, and we--I am here to report to you that we have taken
giant strides toward the improvement of those training manuals,
providing up to the date manuals which are easy to understand
for our individual Marines, soldiers, sailors or airmen who can
pick these up and know what it is they have to do to preserve
the integrity of their masks. We are providing videos, and they
will be out this summer, which will engage our people in
something that is easy to view and easy to understand.
We have reviewed all of our tables of organizations in for
NBC specialists. We are manned at over 100 percent of our table
of organization, and I am satisfied that we have a sufficient
number of Marines dedicated down to the unit level, that is
down to the battalion level, to accommodate the charges and
responsibilities and execute those responsibilities.
We have reemphasized training. In fact, as we speak today,
our training command at Quantico, VA, there is a group looking
at training one more time, is it adequate across the board from
the beginning when they come in, officer and enlisted alike,
and then that continuous training which keeps them all current
up until the day they walk out the door.
We have looked at leadership. I feel that that's where it
all starts, emphasis from our commanders, the guys in charge,
and as you can see from my earlier statements, the Commandant
has put a great deal on this by saying I have got one belly
button to push and that belly button is my materiel commander
who is going to ensure that it gets taken care of.
We have instituted reporting, surveillance and
accountability procedures with the hope to gain total asset
visibility throughout the Marine Corps through an automated
system that will be Web based by August of this year.
And finally, on the way ahead, my program managers in the
Marine Corps Systems Command are purchasing the best gear. We
have built in reliability and maintainability as primary. We
have taken all these reports that have been given to us and
have talked about here this morning on what kind of gear we
need to put in their hands, and that's being incorporated and
these buys made.
I thank you for this opportunity here, sir. I'm a 31-year
logistician in the U.S. Marine Corps. I have seen the good, the
bad and the ugly, quite frankly, in this area of NBC. I think
we're on the right road. I know we are. It has the emphasis I
can assure you in the U.S. Marine Corps of protecting our
Marines and all service people from the dangers that NBC
presents to them and while at the same time ensuring the
readiness of all forces, and I'm ready to answer any specific
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of General Lee follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. I thank all of you. I
appreciate the general tone of all your comments. My wife's
uncle is a colonel in the Army, and he sometimes expressed his
differences with the Marines. So I don't want to get in the
battle in terms of who's doing it better or not, but to say
that in the research that we've done, it appears the Marines
have started a little earlier on this project of trying to get
their act together and that we can learn some--the other
services can learn some very beneficial things from what the
Marines have done. So I do want to say that for the record.
I also want to say that I care frankly less about the past
than the future. I did want to put on the record the IG's
report of 1994 and to at least acknowledge that their study had
been validated because I think it's important when it has, it
should be in, and frankly if the PAT had come up with another
conclusion I would have been happy to say the reverse.
I just need to know from each of you whether you accept the
final report of the Mask Surveillance Process Action Team of
November 15th both in terms of its findings and
recommendations, and I'm going the start with you, Dr. Winegar.
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. Yes, I do accept the report from the
Process Action Team in terms of its findings. In terms of its
recommendations, we are not ready at this point to make a final
determination on how the individual services will be able to
implement those. As I mentioned in my opening comments, I'm at
this point awaiting the specifics from each of the services,
and at that time I'll be able to comment on that.
Mr. Shays. General Sylvester.
General Sylvester. Sir, I would say that being a General of
course I accept the findings wherein they talk about the lack
of maintenance and lack of leadership, etc. There are two areas
where I believe that we have some disconnect. The first is in
the area of the M-41 PATS device and whether or not----
Mr. Shays. Talk a little slower.
General Sylvester. And whether or not that device provides
us the ability along with preventive maintenance checks and
services, conducted properly and supervised properly, provides
us a degree of comfort that the protective masks will protect
the soldier should he or she be introduced into an environment
where there is a requirement to be protected. Their findings
suggests that that is, quote, questionable, and we say indeed
it is. We believe that the combination of PMCS and that device
used by an appropriately trained individual gives us a degree
of assurance that that protective mask will indeed work in
conditions of a hazardous environment. An example of that is
that those two devices; i.e., properly conducted PMCS,
preventive maintenance checks and services, and the M-PATS
patch device are the two means by which all protective masks
are checked prior to soldiers going into the chemical defense
training facility, the live agent training facility located out
at Fort Leonard Wood. 54,000 soldiers have gone through that
facility protected by the protective masks that we have issued
today and those two means of checking that protective mask
without failure, without anyone being affected in any way by
chemical agent. I was told the only accident that has ever
occurred out there was when someone slipped in the shower and
hurt themselves.
Mr. Shays. I'm not anticipating we have to be here a long
time, but I am going to want to be clear. I'm assuming that all
of you have the final report. Do you have it all in front of
you? General Robbins? I am interested to know--well, I think I
erred, General Sylvester, in--first off, do you all concur that
this was a proper study?
General Robbins. Yes, sir.
General Sylvester. Yes.
Admiral Stone. Yes, sir.
General Lee. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. So we are not going to get a dispute with the
validity of the finding, and I'm going to make an assumption
that in a report--in an investigation of the conditions of the
masks that to find out of 19,218 that 10,322 were found
critical, critically defective, that that is totally
unacceptable, and I'm going to make an assumption that we all
agree on that so we don't have to debate that issue.
So some of what you said to me, it's not your fault,
General Sylvester, it went over my head a little bit and I
don't want to get back to it. It's not your fault, mine. But
there are specific recommendations, in some cases some best
business practices by one service that could help the others,
but there are specific recommendations, and I'm interested to
know if the recommendations that affect each and every one of
the branches here, whether we can agree that you agree that you
need to follow these recommendations, and if you don't, I want
you to cite the specific page of the recommendation that you
disagree with and don't intend to follow. Otherwise I'm going
to make the assumption that you agree with every recommendation
and that you intend to do what the recommendations say.
Now, there could be another caveat, you agree with the
recommendations but you don't feel you have the capability of
fulfilling them, and then I need to know. The committee needs
to know. In other words, I never appreciate someone from the
executive branch or the military, whatever, who says
everything's fine and then I find out later they didn't have
the personnel, the equipment, the money to do the job. If you
don't have the financial resources or the personnel to carry
out these recommendations but you agree with them, then I want
to know that, too.
So let me just say, I'll throw it open in general. I'm
going to assume that all of you agree with the recommendations
as it pertains to your service unless you specifically point
out a recommendation you disagree with, and after we've done
that I'm going to then say, I'm going to ask a question about
whether you would be able to carry out the recommendation. Is
there any you would like to question, verify, qualify in any
way? Take a look.
General Robbins. I'm comfortable with it.
Mr. Shays. Admiral.
Admiral Stone. Sir, comfortable.
Mr. Shays. General Lee.
General Lee. I'm comfortable with it with the exception of
the recommendation that we add an NBC specialist to our FASMO
teams.
Mr. Shays. And that recommendation, can you cite the
recommendation?
General Lee. It's near the end. It's on page 7, sir. The
problem it says is that the headquarters for USMC staff each
FASMO team with an NBC defense specialist staff NCO or officer.
Mr. Shays. And you don't feel that it is necessary, and the
recommendation there is what?
General Lee. Well, each one of our--they recommend that we
assign one but each one of our FASMOs are located at every one
of our major installations, our fleet stock, our field supports
units analysis office, and when--at each one of the battalions
and each one of the divisions and the wings, etc. They all have
one officer and three staff NCOs, and every time they go down
to look at a unit, they take that team down with them. So
they're already there and these folks already are assigned when
we do the individual and yearly inspections. So it seemed to us
to be redundant and extra structure that's unnecessary.
Mr. Shays. OK. But that's the only one that you take----
General Lee. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. Admiral, you said fine. General Robbins.
General Sylvester. Sir, I have only one and that is the
recommendation on page 9 of the study wherein it recommends
that centralized storage and maintenance and maintenance NBC--
--
Mr. Shays. I don't have page 9.
General Sylvester. Oh, sorry, sir.
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. The last page, page 8.
General Sylvester. My page 9, your page 8, sir.
Mr. Shays. OK. Sure. Start over again, please.
General Sylvester. Under paragraph D, service specific
problems, subparagraph----
Mr. Shays. Believe it or not, I don't have that. I don't
know why.
General Sylvester. Sir, there is a recommendation which
states, ``that centralized storage and maintenance and
maintenance NBC rooms be reestablished in the United States
Army.''
Mr. Shays. I have a D on page 7, the identification and
maintenance management shortfalls. That's not what you're
referring to. Oh, I'm sorry. OK. So recommendation of
centralized storage and maintenance.
General Sylvester. So with respect to the recommendation
that we reestablish centralized storage maintenance facilities
for masks, we believe that that is not a measure which we care
necessarily to take across the board of the U.S. Army. There is
application in certain organizations for that. There is
certainly not application in others, and it takes away the
responsibility of the individual soldier, his immediate
supervisor and the chain of command for ensuring that the
proper preventive maintenance checks and services of the
individual's protective gear is maintained in the same manner
as it would be were it his rifle or any other element of
personal equipment.
Mr. Shays. Is there any of these--so that's one
qualification from you, General Sylvester, and you as well,
General Lee, and let me say, in dialog with your comrades, if
you need to qualify or look at any other recommendation, we'd
like to give you like 3 days to go through that and get back to
us. If we don't hear from you in 3 days, then we'll assume that
everything we said here is the final word.
Is there any recommendation--I'm going to get--Doctor, yes,
what would you like to say?
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. I have one recommendation that I don't
agree with if it is my turn.
Mr. Shays. Yes, it is.
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. On the general recommendations----
Mr. Shays. On page?
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. The last page, paragraph E, general
recommendations. The second recommendation suggests that the
Office of the Secretary of Defense establish a separate funding
line for mask surveillance, and I would respectfully disagree
with that recommendation maintaining that it is appropriate for
the services to maintain individual funding with my office
providing the requisite oversight that they do so.
Mr. Shays. We'll so note that. Is there any recommendation
that you do not have the capability of carrying out or you have
the capability and either lack of personnel or financial that
you need to let us know, while you agree with the
recommendation, you're just not sure you could carry it out?
General Robbins.
General Robbins. Sir, there's only one Air Force.
Mr. Shays. Air Force is a tiny planet and you're looking at
the clock.
General Robbins. That's OK, sir. But we have met the
direction given by the Joint Chiefs on that one item. So we're
very comfortable with it. I would add to what was just stated
that it's the--it's not the surveillance system in terms of the
procedures of mask surveillance that concerns us. It is the
equipment. As I stated in my statement, we rely on the Marine
Corps to help us test masks and there is an item in the
unfunded portion of the program for a Joint Service Mask Leak
Detector. As I understand, it's totally unfunded. So until we
get that, we're going to continue to rely on the Marines to
assist us.
Mr. Shays. In my travels to all four services in the last 2
years plus, I have appreciated the cooperation that exists
among the services, which is encouraging me as a civilian to
see that and as a Member of Congress.
Dr. Winegar, you have something in your statement that
obviously pleased me to death. It wasn't in your original
statement. It talked about coordination, and I'd like you to
just make that point again. I was trying to find it as you were
reading, and it talked about a greater effort to coordinate,
and can you just go over that statement again with me. It is
not in my own.
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. Yes, sir. That was in addition to my
written statement that I had provided, and the comment that I
was making was that there are a number of offices within the
OSD, the Secretary of Defense level, that have an interest and
primary responsibility for some aspect of chemical-biological
defense, and I wanted to emphasize that I think there's a great
deal of effort being put in by all of those individuals to
assure coordination across the various areas of responsibility
and as well with the Joint Staff and the individual services.
Mr. Shays. Yes. You didn't say it as succinctly this time
as last time. I liked the way you said it better last time.
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. I read it the first time. So if you
can tell me whether it was near the beginning, the middle or
end.
Mr. Shays. It was near the end. It talked about your adding
to staff to improve coordination. Wouldn't you have known that
that would have pleased me a bit?
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. And I don't mean please me, but the bottom line
is----
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. It sends a positive message.
Mr. Shays. You have said in previous testimony ``I have
responsibility for coordinating the Department's chemical and
biological defense program. My job is to bring all these
disparate groups together so they can have a coordinated
effort.'' You have in the past tried to emphasize that if you
don't have budgetary control you don't have control, and our
concern is that there be someone from DOD that can help
coordinate the response to chemical and biological, and I kind
of felt that you were having a greater emphasis on this role
that I think all the services obviously would benefit from, and
so if you would just make that point.
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. Yes, sir. I wanted to emphasize that
the primary responsibility from my office is in the area of
research, development and acquisition of programs. But, with
the relatively recent approval of some new positions, and I
have recruited some new staff to come into my office, I'm
prepared to take a more active, aggressive role in assuring
chemical-biological defense readiness in addition to other
components of chemical-biological defense issues.
Mr. Shays. And that has the approval of those--your
superiors and so on?
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. Yes, sir. Those were the people that
authorized me to hire additional people into my office and I
think that that attests also to their interest and support in
this area.
Mr. Shays. This committee has responsibility for terrorism
at home and abroad. We don't authorize legislation, we don't
appropriate money but we are the only committee, obviously the
Intelligence Committee, but we are the only standing committee
that basically has the responsibility of looking at terrorism
at home and abroad, and we're spending a lot of our time
looking at biological, chemical and in some cases nuclear
response, and the thing that obviously is of course is that
there is a disjointed effort where we don't maximize the
benefits of all the services and coordinate, and I think it's
absolutely imperative, Dr. Winegar, that you accept that role,
and I'm pleased that you have support from your superiors to be
more forceful in that effort.
Let me say this, there's only one comment, and I'm almost
inclined not to bring it up, other than to say that if you give
me permission, General Sylvester, I'll not be concerned by this
comment and we can leave it at that, and that is--actually it's
your comment, Dr. Winegar, and it is also General Ellis' and
that is this comment, there is no indication of extensive mask
degradation over time or through field usage other than through
wear and tear, which is exacerbated by the lack of field and
fleet maintenance. I just want to know that I don't have to
interpret this as trying to minimize, and we can leave it at
that, the study, the significance of the study of the final
Mask Surveillance Process Action Team.
Dr. Johnson-Winegar. You're correct in your assumption.
Mr. Shays. We will leave it at that. General Sylvester,
could I just get rather than a visual response, could I--you're
familiar with this comment. I just want to put it in proper
perspective. I should not interpret that--I shouldn't interpret
General Ellis' statement that is identical to Dr. Winegar's
that that is in any effort to minimize the serious findings of
the study?
General Sylvester. Absolutely not, sir.
Mr. Shays. We will leave it at that. Is there any comment
that any of you would like to make. General, I'm getting you
out a little later, but I thought I could let you go with the
crowd. Is there any comment that any of you would like to make
in closing? I thank you all for your cooperation, and we look
forward to seeing some great improvement in this area. Thank
you very much.
[Whereupon, at 1:35 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]