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Monday, February 28, 2000

U.S. MILITARY RECALLS DEFECTIVE GAS-WARFARE SUITS By JOHN M. DONNELLY-- Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon has alerted U.S. facilities around the world that hundreds of thousands of protective suits meant to shield GIs from gas and germ attack may have holes and other critical defects, according to military officials and documents.

The Pentagon learned about the flaws five years ago but did not consider the problems crucial and needed the gear for U.S. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia, criminal investigators say. Not until late last year did a second study on the same suits judge identical flaws grave enough to warrant a global warning, the investigators said in an interview. FILE--Soldiers from the 24th Mechanized Infantry Brigade from Fort Stewart, Ga., are shown carrying their weapons as they undergo chemical training in eastern Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield. he Pentagon cautioned commanders not to use any of the 778,000 suits except in training. The suits shown in this picture are not necessarily the suits in question. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)

On Feb. 9, the Pentagon cautioned commanders not to use any of the 778,000 suits except in training. The suits, not all of which are defective, cost the government almost $49 million.

The defects included "cuts, holes, embedded foreign matter and stitching irregularities," the Pentagon inspector general said in a report being released this week. The defects potentially could kill people wearing the trousers and jackets in a "chemical-biological contaminated environment," the report said.

A bankrupt New York City-based company, which the inspector general identified as Istratex, produced the charcoal-lined camouflage suits under two contracts dating from 1989. Soldiers wear the suits over their regular camouflage gear where chemical or biological weapons might be used. It was unclear whether any of the suits were worn by troops in the 1990-91 Desert Shield-Desert Storm operation, when Iraqi chemical attack was considered likely.

Last May, the Justice Department indicted various company officials on charges including conspiracy to defraud the Pentagon, major fraud and making false claims. They all later pleaded guilty to lessor charges.

In September 1999, Istratex's president and production manager each pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in New York to one count of making false statements. Two other company officials pleaded guilty to making false certificate or writing and a fifth official pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice. Sentencings are expected in the spring.

Pentagon criminal investigators said they pointed out to the Defense Logistics Agency, which manages inventories, problems with some of the "battle-dress overgarments" in 1995.

In 1996, the agency's testers, at the investigators' request, studied 500 of the suits and found defects in 174, officials said.

The Defense Logistics Agency identified the problems as major but not "safety-of-life critical defects," said Mitchell Schlitt, the case agent for the inspector general's Defense Criminal Investigative Service in New York.

"So because of a need for these suits for the Bosnia action, they stated a need to retain these in stock," Schlitt said.

Three years later, last September, the criminal investigators asked for new tests, this time by Army designers of the suit, Schlitt said. Examining the same suits, the new team found the defects were in fact critical.

By regulation, Schlitt said, a critical defect, unlike a major one, is so severe that finding one such problem in a single suit warrants stopping use of the whole lot.

According to the military standard, a critical flaw is one that "would result in hazardous or unsafe conditions or ... is likely to prevent performance of the tactical function." By comparision, the official standard says a major defect is not much better: It is "likely to result in failure or to reduce materially the usability of the ... product."

The Istratex executives' guilty pleas were to prosecution allegations that the company intentionally manufactured faulty gear, then duped government inspectors by clandestinely switching small quantities of well-made garments for flawed ones during inspections. Sentencing is set for April, and the executives face jail terms and fines.

The investigators examined suits only from one contract for 173,000 suits. The second contract covered the remaining approximately 605,000 suits, but the prosecutors did not examine those. Still, the Pentagon's alert warns U.S. forces that defective suits might be found among all 778,000 made under the two deals.

The Defense Logistics Agency found 334,000 suits at its depot in Albany, Ga., that are "potentially deficient and attributable to the manufacturer in question," said Gerda Parr, an agency spokeswoman. That leaves 444,000 suits made by Istratex.

James Kornides, the top auditor on the case, believes many of the suits were deployed to far-flung places. "That's why we wanted them to ... alert the operational units that those suits could be defective," he said.

His audit found the Georgia depot, which stores much of the military's chemical-protective gear, not only did not know if it held flawed suits but also didn't know how many suits it had at all. In the case of one type of garment, the depot had overstated the inventory by 31,277 suits.