By Lisa Myers and Adam Ciralsky, NBC News
The Pentagon’s Inspector General has found that the U.S. Army repeatedly failed to follow federal contracting rules in procuring billions of dollars worth of body armor for American soldiers, according to an IG report obtained by NBC News.
In nearly half of the body-armor contracts given out between January 2004 and December 2006, according to the report, the Army failed to require or perform so-called ‘first article testing’ designed to catch and correct any defects in the body-armor manufacturing process. What’s more, the Army failed to maintain appropriate records to justify why a number of contracts were awarded in the first place, the report said. It is scheduled for public release tomorrow.
As a result, the report states that the Department of Defense “has no assurance” that 13 of 28 Army body-armor contracts--worth an estimated $2.98 billion--“met the required standards” or that 11 of 28--worth an estimated $3.92 billion--“were awarded based on informed procurement decisions.”
“This is astonishing,” said Congresswoman Louis Slaughter (D-N.Y.), the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee. She first asked the IG to examine the Pentagon’s body-armor procurement practices back in April 2006. Slaughter told NBC News: “Army’s officials have a responsibility to the soldier and the taxpayer and they failed in both areas. Whoever is responsible for this needs to be fired.”
For its part, the U.S. Marine Corps, which has fewer acquisition resources than the Army, received high marks for its work on body armor. The IG’s review of 12 Marine Corps contracts during the same period (January 2004 and December 2006) found no deficiencies in either testing or record keeping.
In a statement to the IG, the Army official responsible for body armor, Brigadier General Mark Brown, insisted that the Army “conducts rigorous and extensive testing of body armor to ensure that it meets Army standards and is safe for use by Soldiers in combat.” Army officials told the IG they have no evidence of any deaths attributable to defective body armor.
With respect to first article testing, General Brown argues that federal regulations do not mandate a specific time in which such testing must be conducted. Moreover, he said the same regulations allow the Army to waive testing where the body armor being purchased is identical or similar to armor that was previously tested and accepted.
But after examining Army files, the IG said that in 15 of 28 cases there was no documentation of the sort federal acquisition rules require in order to justify the issuance of a waiver (or any other deviation from contract requirements).
The Army has until April 30 to provide comment on a series of recommendations put forth by the IG to ensure that Army body-armor contracts comply with federal acquisition rules.
