[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL EQUIPMENT: PREPARING FOR A TOXIC BATTLEFIELD
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 1, 2002
__________
Serial No. 107-232
__________
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
WASHINGTON : 2003
88-612 PDF
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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 MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia DC
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------ ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia ------
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York TOM LANTOS, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DAVE WELDON, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
J. Vincent Chase, Chief Investigator
Jason Chung, Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on October 1, 2002.................................. 1
Statement of:
Johnson-Winegar, Dr. Anna, Assistant to Secretary of Defense
for CBD; General Stephen Goldfein, Deputy Director, Joint
Warfighting Capability Analysis JCS; Major General William
L. Bond, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army
(Alt); Michael A. Parker, Deputy to the Commander, U.S.
Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command [SBCCOM]; and
George Allen, Deputy Director, Defense Supply Center-
Philadelphia, Defense Logistics Agency, Department of
Defense.................................................... 74
Schmitz, Joseph E., Inspector General, Office of the
Inspector General, Department of Defense, accompanied by
Donald A. Bloomer, Program Director, Readiness Division,
Office of the Inspector General, Department of Defense; and
David K. Steensma, Deputy Assistant Inspector General,
Office of the Inspector General, Department of Defense; and
Raymond J. Decker, Director, Defense Capabilities and
Management, U.S. General Accounting Office, accompanied by
William W. Cawood, Assistant Director, Defense Capabilities
and Management, U.S. General Accounting Office............. 16
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Allen, George, Deputy Director, Defense Supply Center-
Philadelphia, Defense Logistics Agency, Department of
Defense, prepared statement of............................. 118
Bolton, Claude, Assistant Secretary of the Army for
Acquisition, Logistics and Technology and the Army
Acquisition Executive, prepared statement of............... 93
Decker, Raymond J., Director, Defense Capabilities and
Management, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared
statement of............................................... 31
Goldfein, General Stephen, Deputy Director, Joint Warfighting
Capability Analysis JCS, prepared statement of............. 86
Johnson-Winegar, Dr. Anna, Assistant to Secretary of Defense
for CBD, prepared statement of............................. 78
Parker, Michael A., Deputy to the Commander, U.S. Army
Soldier and Biological Chemical Command [SBCCOM], prepared
statement of............................................... 109
Schmitz, Joseph E., Inspector General, Office of the
Inspector General, Department of Defense, prepared
statement of............................................... 20
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 4
Watson, Hon. Diane E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 12
CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL EQUIPMENT: PREPARING FOR A TOXIC BATTLEFIELD
----------
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2002
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 10:05 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher
Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Shays, Gilman, Platts, Kucinich,
Schakowsky, Tierney, Allen, and Watson.
Staff present: Lawrence J. Halloran, staff director and
counsel; J. Vincent Chase, chief investigator; Dr. R. Nicholas
Palarino, senior policy advisor; Jason M. Chung, clerk; Jarrel
Price, intern; David Rapallo, minority counsel; and Earley
Green, minority assistant clerk.
Mr. Shays. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations
hearing entitled Chemical and Biological Equipment: Preparing
for a Toxic Battlefield,'' is called to order.
In the event U.S. forces are called upon to rid the world
of the grave and growing threat posed by the current Iraqi
regime, it must be assumed those men and women will face
chemical and biological weapons.
That prospect compels us to ask, are we ready to fight and
prevail on a contaminated battlefield? That question has vexed
Pentagon planners and congressional committees since the
Persian Gulf war.
According to the Department of Defense, DOD, after-action
analyses, shortcomings in the availability, suitability and
durability of chemical and biological, CB, defense equipment,
particularly protective suits and masks, left combat troops
avoidably vulnerable to unconventional attack in Operation
Desert Storm.
Despite prolonged and costly efforts to improve CB defense
doctrines, tactics and materiel, seemly intractable problems
still plague the effort to defend against chemical and
biological weapons attacks. Research and development remains
unfocused and in some instances duplicative.
Procurements are behind schedule. Due to persistent
inventory management weaknesses, DOD does not always know how
many CB defense items are available, where they are, or when
they will get to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who
need them. Old protective suits are expiring faster than the
next generation suits are being produced, pointing to a
potential shortage through most of this decade.
Compounding the problem, overall inventory visibility
remains so poor, some units have sold new suits on the Internet
as excess while other units are forced to delay critical
training because they can't get the same suits.
A byzantine management structure wastes time and money and
allows the Army, Navy and Air Force to maintain service-
specific approaches at the expense of a truly joint effort.
Some of these problems are endemic to any BC defense
effort. Protective suits have always been too hot, masks prone
to leak, collective protective shelters were deemed inadequate.
Decontamination systems required too much water, detectors
sounded false alarms too often, and medical antidotes were not
trusted.
These old complaints reflect the harshest reality
confronted on the modern battlefield: There is no absolute
immunity to biological or chemical attack.
Nevertheless, having rightly renounced in-kind retaliation
capabilities, the key to CB deterrence is CB defense. U.S.
personnel must be the best equipped and best prepared force on
Earth to enable them to survive, fight and win on a chemical
and biological battlefield.
One important lesson learned in the Gulf war should inform
our discussion today. CB defense is a tactical, not a strategic
consideration. Contamination avoidance and other force
protection capabilities shape how U.S. forces pursue their
mission, not whether that mission is in our national interest.
As one Gulf war analyst put it, having looked into the eyes
of the dragon in the Iraqi desert, military planners cannot
rely on nuclear deterrence or mere luck to avoid CB attack. We
must constantly reevaluate the threat and reform our defenses
against it.
Two years ago this subcommittee heard testimony from the
General Accounting Office, GAO, the DOD Inspector General and
key Pentagon officials in the status of the chemical and
biological defense program. We told them then that we would
invite them back to describe progress and problems meeting
their own performance goals.
Whether the threat emanates from Iraq, Iran, North Korea or
some national terrorist groups, their answers are of vital
importance to our national security.
This open hearing will be followed by a closed session to
allow Members to question our witnesses on classified aspects
of the CB defense program. While I understand the imperative to
protect sensitive material, I have been concerned for some time
that excessive classification of information in this area has
done unconscionable damage to reform efforts.
Failure to declassify IG reports on gas mask failures in
the Gulf war era allowed the problem to fester for years behind
a bureaucratic fog. The frankest possible discussion of the
challenges we face, short of telegraphing actual
vulnerabilities to a potential enemy, is an essential element
of an effective CB defense program.
In that spirit, we welcome our very distinguished
witnesses. We look forward to their testimony, and we thank
them from the bottom of our hearts for their service to our
country during these very troubled times.
At this time I would recognize my colleague, the very
active member and partner in the work of this committee, the
ranking member, Dennis Kucinich.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8612.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8612.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8612.003
Mr. Kucinich. I want to thank the Chair for calling this
hearing, and to indicate my willingness to work with you on
these issues that are so important to our national security.
On September 18th, General Myers, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Armed Services Committee.
He was asked, under oath, whether the Pentagon was prepared to
handle a chemical or biological attack by Iraq.
In response he made the following assertion, ``Obviously
our forces prepare for that, they train for that, and they
would be ready to deal with that type of environment.''
Today the Inspector General of the Department of Defense
and the U.S. General Accounting Office are issuing independent
reports detailing a host of new and disturbing findings about
the inability of the Department of Defense to protect service
members against chemical and biological attacks.
These reports are not peripheral. They strike at the core
of our servicemen and servicewomen's ability to carry out their
mission, and these reports were written by two agencies charged
with providing independent and unbiased assessments. They also
directly contradict the Department of Defense's public
assertion of confidence.
Now, unfortunately, the American public will never see
these reports. The country will not understand the true scope
of these problems because the Department of Defense has
classified those reports. Now, I can understand on one hand the
rationale for classification, not wanting to reveal sensitive
vulnerabilities to adversaries, not wanting to place the lives
of service members at risk. Those are important considerations.
But, under the circumstances, in order to protect our
servicemen and servicewomen, we have to look at the flip side
of that argument. By denying the American people information
that is critical to the safety of our sons and daughters who
serve in the field, the Department of Defense may be placing
servicemen and servicewomen at even greater risk. There are a
great number of American families of servicemen and
servicewomen who served this country during the last war in the
Persian Gulf, and they understand, based on the experience that
their loved ones have had with what is called Gulf War
Syndrome.
There are many different circumstances and reasons why
people could have developed the sensitivities that they did.
One speculation is that U.S. bombs hit ammunition dumps, which
then exploded certain biologicals and chemicals that may have
occasioned contact with our service personnel.
Another is the possibility that such weapons were
dispersed. But, in any event, we know that American servicemen
and servicewomen were adversely affected and that they weren't
protected, and that the Department of Defense has not protected
the people who served during the Gulf war, and there are
families that have been devastated by this.
So we have to come back to the moment and ask what will we
do to protect the servicemen and servicewomen of this country
before we get into such a conflict. The American people deserve
to know the true dangers which their sons and daughters could
face.
And up to now, up to now the Department of Defense has
downplayed those dangers. The Department of Defense wants it
both ways. On one hand it claims that we must take urgent, even
unilateral action against Iraq, because we are told by some,
although not conclusively confirmed by the CIA, that Iraq
possesses chemical and biological weapons.
Yet, contrary to the last decade in which Iraq refrained
from using chemical or biological weapons, there is a consensus
that if the United States goes into Iraq with the purpose of
regime change, Saddam Hussein will have nothing to lose by
using whatever weapons he may have.
Now, obviously, in this case inspections become of urgent
concern. On the other hand, when it comes to the actual dangers
our Armed Forces face, the Department of Defense has not been
forthcoming. Administration officials say they are confident
they have enough working protective gear to ensure the safety
of our service members. Well, today the myth is exposed.
The classified reports need to be unclassified. The
American people have a right to know the dangers that our young
men and women could face. The American people have a right to
know the preparedness of our military on matters of biological
and chemical weapons conflict. The American people have a right
to know whether or not there are serious deficiencies in
equipment and inadequate and deficient training.
Now, I am forbidden from discussing the details of
classified reports, but I will mention one unclassified
example. We know that many protective suits that would be worn
by our men and women who would serve in combat, many of those
protective suits currently are in the field and these suits are
defective.
Suits have holes in them. They have tears in the seams.
They cannot protect against a chemical or biological attack.
They would leave vulnerable the men and women out in the field.
Now, although the suit manufacturer is now in prison,
hundreds of thousands of these suits went out into the field.
They were given to service members throughout the world. They
were provided to soldiers in Bosnia, and as of last year the
Pentagon, and this is on the record, this is already known,
this is not classified, as of last year the Pentagon could not
account for a quarter of a million of such suits.
It is public knowledge. The Department of Defense was
unable to recall these suits, because its inventory systems are
very poor. The General Accounting Office reported that several
military suits--several military units were selling brand new
protective suits which cost $200 apiece over the Internet for
$3 each.
As a result, there is a real possibility that in the near
future a young man or woman in the Persian Gulf may slip on one
of these protective suits with a false promise of protection.
Now, I am sure that we will hear from the Department of
Defense that systems are now in place to avoid such mistakes.
However, this is the same department which has dragged its feet
in first identifying the defective suits, the same department
that refused to test all of the suits because of cost concerns,
and the same department that refused to separate its
inventories when suits in fact proved defective.
I want to thank the chairman for holding this hearing,
because this hearing is about national security. But it is also
about whether we care about our servicemen and servicewomen,
and the conditions that we would put them in. I am not going to
have any servicemen and servicewomen serving this country, put
them in harm's way and not make sure that they have every piece
of equipment they need to protect them and to make sure that
they can serve this country.
I thank the Chair.
Mr. Shays. Thank the gentleman. We have Mr. Tierney. Mr.
Tierney, thank you for being here. You have been a very active
participant on this issue, and have taken a keen interest in
this particular hearing. Thank you for coming.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I hope whatever
it is that you have for a cold gets better soon. Sounds like
tough going there.
Mr. Chairman, I think you know from correspondence that I
have had with you and discussions that I have great concern
about the preparedness and the readiness of our troops to
engage in the type of a conflict that may well be met in the
Middle East.
And one of the concerns that I think many of us have about
a unilateral preemptive strike without first going through the
international bodies and having our allies work with us to try
to accomplish the ends of inspections and disarmament and then
moving only as a last resort to a military engagement, a lot of
that stems from recent reports on the Millennium Challenge
2002, which was warfare simulation exercises that I wrote you
about and which were reported in a recent column in the New
York Times, not very favorably, and they raised great concern.
And I am somewhat concerned also that much of the
information we are going to hear today about relevant factors
presumably are going to come in a classified section of this
hearing, and I think that when we are having a public
discussion about what the future of this country is going to be
in terms of going to war or not going to war and engaging the
young men and women of our services, the public ought to have
all of the pertinent information that isn't truly in need of
classification.
I oftentimes question just why we classify much of the
information, because once we get into those classified hearings
it seems the public well should have much of those facts. But
the reports of this simulation, simulated exercise indicate
that clearly any action we have against Iraq wouldn't be a cake
walk, for sure.
The report, and I hope we get to the bottom of this, says
that the war games were fiddled with in ways that raise
questions about whether the government is returning to a
Vietnam style over optimism and myopia.
In fact Paul Van Riper, who is a retired Marine Lieutenant
General, who played the enemy's military commander during these
exercises, was quoted as saying, there is an unfortunate
culture developing in the American military that maybe should
make you nervous. I don't see the rich intellectual discussion
that we had after Vietnam, I see mostly slogans, cliches and
unreadable materials.
And then General Van Riper said the mood reminded him of
the mindset in Vietnam, excessive faith in technology,
inadequate appreciation of the fog of war, lack of
understanding of the enemy, and simple hubris. I don't think we
can afford hubris, Mr. Chairman. I think that we have to be
absolutely certain that our troops are prepared, that all of
the equipment that we give them to go into any situation is
going to be effective beyond question, and that we have to make
sure that we are ready.
These reported exercises again indicate to us that before
the 13,500 people participating in it, before the American
forces in these games even arrived on the scene they were sunk.
Much of the American fleet was sunk. So in order to have the
exercise go forward, they just resurrected them and started
again. They also indicated that they took away many of the
options that we could expect Saddam Hussein to use and didn't
make them available to the enemy.
And I understand, as this article indicated, that these are
war games, war simulations, and obviously you want to learn as
much as you can. I think what we need to find out today is are
we learning, are we learning from whatever happened in there
that was not good news, and are we going to take whatever
action is necessary to make sure that our troops are properly
equipped and well protected, and that we go in a sequence in
which we would go in moving forward on these issues of such
import, and that we are thoroughly prepared.
So with those comments, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the
hearing and our witnesses and the testimony.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. If my colleagues would just permit me
to say that when we had the debate on whether or not to go into
the Persian Gulf war, it was a debate in which all Members
stated their views. We tried to get as much information as
possible, and we were very respectful of each other's
positions.
And I appreciate you raising the questions you have.
Obviously it is a bit awkward to have an open hearing and then
a declassified one and then a classified one.
But we decided to go with the open first and push as hard
as we can to know what can be on the record, and then we will
leave the rest for the classified. In other words, we have
reversed the order that we usually do.
And I just want to say that I would have to believe that
everyone cares about obviously making sure our troops are
protected. But there are questions about frankly how well they
were protected in the Persian Gulf as this committee and you
all have, both of you have clearly pointed out.
We have two panels. We have Mr. Joseph Schmitz, Inspector
General, Office of the Inspector General, Department of
Defense, accompanied by Donald A. Bloomer, Program Director,
Readiness Division, Office of the Inspector General, and David
K. Steensma, Deputy Assistant Inspector General, Office of the
Inspector General, Department of Defense.
Mr. Schmitz will testify. And then we have, from the GAO,
Mr. Raymond J. Decker, Director of Defense Capabilities and
Management, U.S. General Accounting Office, accompanied by Mr.
William W. Cawood, Assistant Director of Defense Capabilities
and Management, U.S. General Accounting Office.
We will follow this process. You will see the 5-minute
light. We allow you to go on another 5 minutes, but we are not
trying to encourage you to fill the full 10 minutes. We would
like you to stop clearly before then.
But if you deem it necessary, the issue is too important,
and my colleagues and I understand that and would want you to
be able to make your points as you need to make them. But we
would prefer that they be 5 minutes, and then roll over 5, but
clearly not to 10 total.
At this time, let me just take care 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.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Diane E. Watson follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8612.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8612.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8612.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8612.007
Mr. Shays. I ask further unanimous consent that all
witnesses be permitted to include their written statements in
the record. Without objection, so ordered.
At this time, I would ask the gentlemen who are testifying
and the accompanying testifiers to stand up. If there is anyone
else that may be responding to questions, I would like them to
stand up in this first panel. Are we pretty complete with the 5
of us here?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Note for the record our witnesses have responded
in the affirmative.
Mr. Schmitz, we are going to start you off, and then we are
going to go to Mr. Kucinich for the first round of questions,
then I will go and then Mr. Tierney, unless there is another of
my colleagues who comes.
Mr. Schmitz.
STATEMENTS OF JOSEPH E. SCHMITZ, INSPECTOR GENERAL, OFFICE OF
THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, ACCOMPANIED BY
DONALD A. BLOOMER, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, READINESS DIVISION, OFFICE
OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AND DAVID K.
STEENSMA, DEPUTY ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL, OFFICE OF THE
INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AND RAYMOND J.
DECKER, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, U.S.
GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY WILLIAM W. CAWOOD,
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, DEFENSE CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, U.S.
GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Schmitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. I am going to make another request. I am sorry
to interrupt you before you just said one word. For some
reason, we don't have a very good cooling system. I think it is
getting a little better. But our amplification is not so
terrific. The silver mic is what amplifies, the black mic is
what is part of C-SPAN, obviously both are important. Just want
you to speak fairly loudly.
Mr. Schmitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Kucinich, Mr. Tierney.
This is the second opportunity I have had to appear before
this committee, this subcommittee, and I am grateful for the
previous and this opportunity to address your questions
regarding the status of individual protective equipment
intended to protect our Armed Forces from chemical and
biological attack.
I share your concerns with respect to the Department's
inventories, quality controls and serviceability of individual
protective equipment.
In our open session I want to present our observations
related to the need for an inventory management tool at the
unit level that contains the essential elements needed for
chemical and biological defense materiel, improvement in
readiness reporting and training challenges.
Let me thank, at the onset, whoever brought this World War
I era Army poster here to the hearing, because it reminds me of
the fact that my own grandfather was gassed by the Germans on a
battlefield in France during World War I.
I am told--I don't know for sure whether it was because of
a defective gas mask or whether he even had a gas mask, but I
am told that he ultimately died from residual effects of this
gas.
This is a vital issue, and I sincerely hope that the audits
my office has conducted in this area meaningfully assist this
committee, the Congress, and the warfighters in improving our
readiness.
The Department has a very comprehensive program to provide
world class chemical and biological defense capabilities. These
capabilities allow the Armed Forces of the United States to
survive and successfully complete their operational missions
across the spectrum of conflicts.
Our Armed Forces must be prepared to execute their missions
in all types of environments, including those that are
chemically and biologically contaminated. The Department must
maintain an active, viable chemical and biological defense
program in order to protect its forces.
In his annual report to the President and to Congress, the
Secretary of Defense stated that, ``the proliferation of NBC
technology, materiel and expertise has provided potential
adversaries with the means to challenge directly the safety and
security of the United States and its allies and friends.''
As a result of various reviews, my office has made efforts
to address the availability and serviceability of the chemical
and biological defense materiel issued to the Armed Forces.
Since the last appearance before this subcommittee in June
2000, the Office of the Inspector General has continued its
efforts to ensure that the chemical and biological defense
equipment issued to the Armed Forces has been adequately
maintained and stored and that all personnel requiring chemical
and biological defense equipment have it and are properly
trained to use it.
Two audits we have conducted address issues your invitation
letter specifically requested me to discuss, Mr. Chairman.
Because the results of the two audits are classified I will
discuss them in closed session.
Since February 2000, we have visited 287 units in 31
States, one U.S. territory and nine countries under the command
of two unified commands, eight active duty component commands,
four reserve component commands and the Army and Air National
Guard to review their management of chemical and biological
defense resources.
The results of our work are based on what we have seen in
the military units most likely to encounter a chemical and
biological attack. The problems that we identified in those
unit visits can be corrected. The issues are not
insurmountable. Solving the problem will require a concerted
effort at all levels of command in each of the Services, and in
the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Some commands such as the U.S. Naval Forces, Central
Command, have established vigorous programs to protect
personnel from chemical and biological weapons. Other
organizations have less robust programs that need to be
improved. I will discuss those programs in greater detail later
in the closed session.
Limited visibility of chemical and biological defense items
as assets remains a problem at the installation or user level
because of the lack of automated inventory tracking systems at
that level. Each of the Services maintain their own inventory
management tool. These tools are often augmented at the local
installation level with other tools, usually locally developed
or produced that provide a detailed view of the stocks of
chemical and biological defense equipment.
The tools are systems that should contain, at a minimum,
information such as stock number, size, contract number, lot
number, date of manufacture, date of expiration, date of
inspection, the individual issued the item, and any service
bulletins or recall notices.
There should not be a need to develop inventory management
tools at the installation level. For example, one Navy activity
reported to us that they spent $15,000 to develop an Excel
spreadsheet, while another Navy activity identified an
expenditure of roughly $100,000 to develop and field their
chemical and biological defense equipment inventory tool.
Although these expenditures might seem small on an
individual basis the fact that commanders identified a need to
develop their own tools should highlight the need for a
departmentwide standardized inventory tool.
The Department has worked to standardize other issues
related to chemical and biological defense, and it can do so
here as well.
Standardizing an automated inventory management tool would
provide departmentwide benefits. This would not even require
developing a new inventory tool, because some of the tools
already in use could be adapted to the other services. For
example, the mobility inventory and control accountability
system currently used throughout the Air Force provides a level
of detail that units in each of the Services have identified
would aid them in managing their inventories.
This system is used to maintain control of inventory and
can be used to identify materials on hand that would have been
flagged for inspection because of the service notices or
product recalls, such as the one for defective overgarments.
The system also assists in managing on-hand stocks with an
identified shelf life by tracking lot numbers or dates of
manufacture. The question then becomes one of who should be the
one to enforce standardization. We believe the Office of the
Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Chemical and
Biological Defense should provide the oversight departmentwide,
and should be responsible for initiatives such as this.
We have recommended that the Deputy Assistant develop and
field a DOD standardized inventory management system for all
items of chemical and biological defense. In response to our
recommendation, the Deputy Assistant agreed that the Services
and the Defense Logistics Agency have numerous inventory
management systems with limited ability to share information.
The Deputy Assistant pointed out the DOD has established a
single focus point for gathering and disseminating data for the
New Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology
ensembles, and that the Defense Logistics Agency is actively
involved in replacing legacy systems with one that will
interface with the Services' systems beginning in 2005.
We have conveyed to the Deputy Assistant that 2005 is too
long to wait. A standard inventory tool at the installation
level for chemical and biological defense equipment is needed
now for the units to effectively manage their equipment.
The Army can enhance the preparedness of our forces
relative to chemical and biological----
Mr. Shays. You need to start thinking about wrapping up
here.
Mr. Schmitz. I am very close to my conclusions.
Through an improved unit readiness reporting system, the
Army attempted to provide better information on chemical and
biological defense preparedness when they revised their
readiness reporting instruction in November 2001. But
additional improvements can still be made.
As a result of our work with the Army National Guard and
Army Reserve, we recommended the Army revise their instruction
for reporting readiness and include reporting of chemical and
biological defense materiel for all Army units. The Army agreed
to our recommendation.
Improved reporting of chemical and biological defense
readiness will aid in creating a climate at all Army levels
where training and equipping forces for chemical and biological
defense receive higher levels of attention and resources. I
will go into greater detail on the issue we identified in the
units we visited in my testimony for the closed session.
For this session, I would like to state that each of the
Services has a comprehensive training program that they believe
will prepare their personnel to survive and operate in a
chemically and biologically contaminated environment.
I believe that they have put in place the foundation on
which programs can be built that will provide for the
protection and survivability of their personnel.
The Marine Corps and Air Force training were more robust
than the Army and the Navy programs. Each of the Services
ensures that all personnel receive chemical and biological
defense training when they enter the service.
Mr. Shays. I am sorry, I need to have you stop.
Mr. Schmitz. That is fine.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schmitz follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Let me just clarify for the purposes of our
questioning before we get on to Mr. Decker. You didn't touch on
a number of points that I think are even more significant than
what you talked about, such as the risk factors and so on.
When we start asking questions about your public document,
are you going to be saying to us that some of that information
will have to be behind closed doors?
Mr. Schmitz. No. If it is in the public document----
Mr. Shays. There are questions about analysis, if A and B
equals something, and C equals B, I just want to make sure that
we can sure pursue those points.
Mr. Schmitz. That is precisely why I have two technical
experts sitting on either side of me.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Decker. I would love it if you could be a
little more vivacious. This is going to be a long day. I need
some variation in the voice, a little excitement. OK?
Mr. Decker. I will try, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. All right.
Mr. Decker. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. I am
joined today by Mr. Cawood, my expert Assistant Director on
these issues. We are pleased to be here today to discuss the
Department of Defense's continuing efforts to protect U.S.
forces against chemical and biological attack.
DOD believes that it is increasingly likely that an
adversary will use a chemical or biological weapons against
U.S. forces to degrade our super U.S. conventional warfare
capabilities, placing service members' lives and effective
military operations at risk.
Currently more than 20 states or non-state groups either
have or have an interest in acquiring chemical weapons, and
approximately 12 countries are believed to have biological
warfare programs. Terrorist groups are known to be interested
in these weapons.
Therefore, U.S. forces need to be properly trained and
equipped to operate in a chemically and biologically
contaminated environment. And, as we have reported, when the
threat of chemical and biological weapons use occurred during
the Gulf war, deploying U.S. forces encountered a wide array of
problems, including unsuitable and inadequate supplies of
protective equipment, poor training, and unsatisfactory
chemical and biological detectors. During the past 7 years, at
the request of Congress, especially this subcommittee, we have
examined this important issue and produced over 30 reports and
statements.
While we found that DOD has made some improvements in
equipment training and readiness reporting, we are continuing
to have concerns in each of these areas. In 1996, we issued a
major report that discussed the overall capability of the U.S.
forces to fight and survive in a contaminated environment. We
reported that DOD was slow in responding to lessons learned
during the Gulf war of 1990/1991.
Specifically, early deploying units lacked required
equipment such as chemical detector paper, decontamination kits
in sufficient quantities and protective equipment.
Army and Marine Corps forces remained inadequately trained
for effective chemical and biological defense. Joint exercises
included little or no chemical and biological defense training.
Armey medical units often lacked chemical and biological
defense equipment and training. Research and development was
slower than planned, and unit reporting on these issues and
readiness was unsatisfactory.
We concluded that these issues were persistent and if not
addressed will likely result in needless casualties and
degradation of U.S. warfighting capability. We noted that
despite DOD's increased emphasis on chemical and biological
defense, it continued to receive a lower priority than
traditional mission tasks at all levels of command.
Many field commanders told us that they accepted a level of
chemical and biological defense unpreparedness as they tried to
balance priorities and budgets.
In 2000 we looked at this issue again, at the early
deploying forces, and we saw a better picture. We reviewed
three Army divisions, two Air Force fighter wings and one
Marine Corps expeditionary force and found that most of these
units had the required individual protective equipment
necessary, and most detection decontamination equipment. This
is a positive.
Officials at the units, however, said that had they
shortages, that the shortages would be filled from stocks held
later for later deployers, were from war reserves, and had not
determined whether this solution would satisfy their needs,Nor
would it have an impact, a negative impact on the future
deployment and our war reserves.
Training continues to be a problem. 1996, the commanders
were not integrating chemical and biological defense in the
unit exercises, and the training was not realistic.
For example, Marine Core commanders did not fully integrate
chemical and biological defense in the unit exercises as
required by Marine Corps policy because operating in the
protective equipment is difficult, it is time consuming, it
decreases the numbers of essential tasks that can be performed
during an exercise, and limits the offensive capability during
these operations.
Officials stated that the chemical and biological defense
training is still being adversely impacted by the shortage of
specialists in these units. We also reported that DOD's
monitoring of the chemical-biological defense readiness in our
1996 report had improved. By 2000, based on our recommendation,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed changes to the status of
reports training systems, SORTS, that will require units to
report more clearly on the quantity of chemical-biological
equipment on hand and training readiness.
However, we noted that the changes do not require that
units report on the condition of the chemical gear; thus, the
reports could indicate that the unit has the equipment, but it
may not be serviceable.
Sir, allow me to focus on a major issue of this hearing;
that is the protective suits that--we have a chart we are going
to put up. Individual protection is a critically important
component to overall chemical and biological defense.
This is the last line of defense for our service members.
Like the DOD IG, we have concluded several recent reviews on
this topic. If I may direct your attention to this chart, which
is on my right, and also on page 10 of the prepared statement,
it depicts the number in millions of older BDO suits, dark, and
the newer joint service lightweight integrated suit technology,
the JSLIST suits in white, from 2001 to 2007. The dotted lines
represent different requirements.
For instance, the horizontal dashed line is the number of
suits required for two major theater wars, and the dashed line
is for 150 percent of one major theater war. Although DOD seems
to be moving from the 2 MTW to the 1\1/2\ MTW, suit shortages
are projected to escalate in the next few years because the
majority of the suits in the current inventory will end their
shelf life and expire by 2007.
And the new suits coming in, the JSLIST, are not entering
the inventory quickly enough to cover the degrading older
suits. As a result, in August 2002, DOD had procured about 1.5
million JSLIST suits, which had been issued to the military
services. This with the older suits equals about 4.5 million
suits. This level is now barely sufficient to meet the new
requirement of 150 percent of one major theater war.
If the new suit funding and the production do not increase
sufficiently to replace the expiring suits, the inventory will
drop each year all of the way out to 2007.
We have testified, and this was covered again by Mr.
Kucinich earlier, about serious deficiencies in inventory
management. DOD IG has done the same. The point that I would
make here is that 250,000 suits that were defective are still
unaccounted for. We have not seen evidence that they have been
found.
Over the last 7 years, we have highlighted a serious gap
between the priority given chemical and biological defense and
the actual implementation of the program. The Quadrennial
Defense Reviews of 1997 and 2001 identified chem and bio
defense as key priorities. Although the program overall is
clearly improved, many of the problems in the previous report
are still unresolved.
Let me focus on the budget. DOD has requested almost $1.4
billion for the chemical and biological defense program 2003.
However, it should be noted $400 million of that is for the
Office of Homeland Security bio defense efforts. Despite the
emphasis placed on this program by the Quadrennial Defense
Review and statements about the threat of weapons of mass
destruction by senior officials, the program has consistently
had difficulty competing against other service priorities, such
as those associated with traditional mission tasks.
Spending on the chem-bio defense program represents one-
third of 1 percent of the defense, the entire defense budget.
In summary, DOD has made many improvements over the years
to defend against and sustain operations in a chemical
environment. These gains have been primarily in the areas of
equipment, training and readiness reporting.
DOD has concurred or partially concurred with 36 of our 37
recommendations in our reports. DOD recognizes that management
and organization of the program must improve and has recently
proposed organization and other changes designed to address
those shortcomings. However, a real gap exists between the
priority and emphasis given chemical and biological defense by
DOD and the actual implementation of the program.
We are concerned that without leadership commitment of the
Department to address long-term conditions we have identified,
survival of our service members operating in a contaminated
environment and the success of our operations are at risk. We
would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may
have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Decker follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you. Before calling on Mr. Kucinich, I
just mentioned to Mr. Kucinich that I just wanted to make a few
points. We, after the Gulf war, which I supported, we had men
and women who came back convinced that they were negatively
impacted by their service to our country in the Gulf war and
that they were ill.
Eventually we identified about 70,000 men and women who
came home ill, and I became chairman of the Human Resource
Committee in 1995, where we had jurisdiction of the Department
of Veterans Affairs. We began intense hearings, where Mr.
Tierney and Mr. Kucinich also became involved during the course
of the years that followed.
I want to say on the record that when we talk about this
issue, it is a very sensitive issue, not just in terms of
national security, but it is sensitive to me because I have
felt that we have never really, until recently, had honest
answers from the Department of Defense.
For instance, there were questions of whether our troops
were exposed to chemical weapons. The Department of Defense
would say they were not exposed to offensive chemical weapons.
We never picked up the word, until we had a gentleman who came
and testified before our committee and came with a video as
they blew up Kamisiyah, and he had pictures of--videos of
blowing up of Kamisiyah, but also some of the canisters of
chemicals and the shelves of chemicals and the rockets that had
chemicals in them which we blew up.
We announced that we were going to have a hearing on
Tuesday the week before, and DOD announced at 12 o'clock they
were going to have a press conference at 4 o'clock in which
they then had a press conference announcing our troops were
exposed to defensive use of chemicals.
Frankly, we didn't see much of a difference, but I guess
offensive and defensive was the way that DOD was able to be
technically correct in the answer to our questions. So it made
us realize that we had to dig deeper. During the course of
these hearings as well, we learned that some protective
headgear, masks, did not meet the manufacturer's specs, they
didn't--35 of one mask didn't and 45 of another, approximately
45, were defective brand new in terms of meeting the level.
It took us about 8 or 9 years to have that report
declassified, and what was troubling to me was that I knew that
our troops, during the course of this time, would potentially
be engaged in other combat missions. I knew that there was a
real debate in the DOD about whether these masks would really
do the jobs that they required.
Now, I understand that DOD was taking issue with the
Inspector General. I think it was the Inspector General's
report about the viability of these masks. But I just put on
the record that every Member up here has to decide whether or
not to send our troops to war, and we have to live with it.
And for me it becomes particularly sensitive, because I was
in the Peace Corps and a conscientious objector and wasn't in
Vietnam and now I am being asked to decide whether people risk
their lives. And I will say for the record, just so I can get
past that point, I determined during the Gulf war that I had to
know what our mission was, that I had to know what our strategy
was, that I had to know that we would use all of the fire power
necessary.
I first had to know what our national interest was, what
our mission, what our strategy, and then know that we would use
whatever firepower was necessary to guarantee the success of
our mission and also in the end know whether exit policy was
total victory or whether it was something less, and that we
would then leave.
I merely mention this because this is a very sensitive
issue, and my colleagues in the part of asking you questions
are really trying to determine, I think, not just whether we
should confront Saddam Hussein, but if we do, what are we
asking our military personnel to do?
And I will just say in conclusion that I hope and pray that
if in fact there are some vulnerabilities to our troops, and
they are still required to go in, that they at least are told
their vulnerabilities, that they are at least told them. Maybe
not the general public, maybe not the enemy, but at least our
own people will have no illusions.
I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to just make that
point.
Mr. Kucinich, you have the floor for 10 minutes. And then I
will go to either one of my colleagues, then I will go, and
then we will go back.
Mr. Kucinich. You know, I think that the Chair is well
taken in his prefatory remarks here. I want to express my
appreciation for them. Because, for me, it gets to the issue
of, you know, would the American people support action against
Iraq which could put their sons and daughters in harm's way if
they knew that there was a distinct possibility that their sons
and daughters could go into combat with defective gear, with
biological and chemical weapon suits that are supposed to
protect them that don't work, that have holes in them, that
have holes in the seams.
I wonder if this isn't one of the reasons why the
Department of Defense is classifying the information? And as we
proceed here with the questions, Mr. Chairman, I want to say,
as the ranking Democrat on this subcommittee that has oversight
over national security, that I am very concerned about the
reasons for classification of information relating to the
safety of this protective gear and to the inability of the
Department of Defense to determine where those quarter of a
million, 250,000, defective suits happen to be.
Now, Mr. Chairman, you probably are familiar that yesterday
something remarkable happened at the Pentagon's briefing room.
Because what they did was to--for years, the media covering the
Pentagon has been asking to see footage of engagements in
Iraq's Northern and Southern no-fly zones. For years these
requests were denied.
Well, Pentagon officials had said that showing such films
would comprise intelligence, provide the enemy with valuable
information about tactics and technology, worst of all endanger
the pilots.
Well, yesterday what happened? The Pentagon showed several
of these films, engagements with Iraqi surface-to-air missiles
and other anti-aircraft. Tapes were suddenly declassified. I am
just wondering if we are not getting here into the politics of
classification. There is another element here, too.
Now I remember how proud this country was to see the
Challenger lift off the pad, and then how horrified we were
when it blew up. And then in the subsequent investigations I
remember distinctly a discussion about concerns that were
expressed in circles about these O-rings, about whether there
was sufficient protection and whether the O-rings were ready
for the launch.
And we know what happened. So are we about to launch a war
against Iraq where our troops are not protected? Now, and one
final note before I get into the questions, Mr. Chairman. You
know, if the Department of Defense is unwilling to be
forthcoming on something so elementary as the safety of
protective suits, suits that would protect our men and women,
our sons and daughters, from a biological or chemical weapons
attack, what other areas, what other areas are we not knowing
about? Is this one of the reasons why some of our most esteemed
generals are saying, don't go there, we are not ready?
Mr. Schmitz, General Myers testified 2 weeks ago that the
military is prepared to fight in a chemical and biological
weapons environment, trained for it and ready to deal with it.
I would like to ask you about that.
Based on your investigations, are there specific military
units that are essentially completely unprotected against a
potential chemical or biological attack?
Mr. Schmitz. I think my best answer, and I will defer to my
technical experts here, because I have only been on the job for
4 months and most of the audits occurred before I took office,
but my best answer is that we have not concluded in our audit
that there are any completely unprotected units.
There is no such thing as complete protection in these type
of issues. We have identified areas of improvement. But I guess
the straight answer to your question is, no, I think is the way
you phrase it. If you phrased it, are there any completely
unprotected units?
Mr. Kucinich. Are there any completely unprotected units?
Mr. Schmitz. I don't believe we have identified any such.
Mr. Kucinich. And did you find specific military units that
do not currently have sufficient protective equipment to meet
the minimum requirements established by the services to protect
against a chemical or biological weapons attack?
Mr. Schmitz. I think that question gets into the classified
discussion. I'll be perfectly glad to discuss that in detail.
Mr. Kucinich. Let me ask you again. I want to ask it again,
just it case--you said you think it does, just in case you
think it doesn't.
Did you find specific military units that do not currently
have sufficient protective equipment to meet even minimum
requirements to protect against a chemical or biological
attack?
Mr. Schmitz. I think that question, with all respect, is
better for the closed session.
Mr. Kucinich. So you're saying it's classified and you
can't discuss it?
Mr. Schmitz. Yes, sir.
Let me also just clarify one thing. The misuse of the
classification system is a serious issue in my view. And I
would like to just say on the record that I classified this
report. And the allegation that the DOD is using the
classification process--I mean, we go by the guidelines set by
the DOD. This is a very, very serious issue about protecting
the lives of our members of the Armed Forces. But if you----
Mr. Kucinich. That's very interesting. So are you telling
me that we should--are you ready to tell the American people
that their sons and daughters who may go into combat are going
to be perfectly safe with the biological and chemical weapons
suits that they'll be wearing? Are you ready to say that?
Mr. Schmitz. What I said is that----
Mr. Kucinich. Can you answer that question, Mr. Schmitz?
Mr. Schmitz. The answer is no, because there is no such
thing as perfect safety in warfare.
Mr. Kucinich. You gave a no answer to my question. I thank
you for being honest.
Mr. Shays. Can I just--the issue is sensitive. I do think a
Member should be able to define what--define what no means;
otherwise, we would have a distortion.
Mr. Kucinich. If he wants to say what no means. We're in a
city where no doesn't always mean no, and yes doesn't always
mean yes. So what does your no mean?
Mr. Schmitz. I'll defer to the closed session, and I'll be
glad to get--be perfectly forthright and allow my technical
experts to answer every single question you have, because I
believe the American people are entitled to know. But I also
take very, very seriously the proper utilization of
classification. And if you have, Mr. Ranking--if you have an a
serious allegation that somebody in the Department of Defense
is misusing the classification process----
Mr. Kucinich. Wait a minute.
Mr. Chairman, this is inappropriate. I didn't make any
allegations.
I'm making statements based on your testimony and you just
told me that you can't answer the question. And the chairman
came back and said, we want to know what no means. You just
told me and anybody watching that you can't say what no means--
--
Mr. Shays. If the gentleman would--no, I don't think he was
saying, if you had that impression, you wanted a yes or no
answer. He was just qualifying his no answer just so we put it
in perspective. That's all I'm saying.
I would not want to be up where these gentleman are and
have a no or yes answer. I would want to be able to say yes or
no and be able to explain why.
I'd also like to say, if I could, that there is so much
information that is valuable and important on the record, I
just want to make sure we don't lose the opportunity of getting
what can be on the record on the record, besides also
disclosing what can't be on the record.
I'm not taking it from the gentleman's time. I want to say
that I hope that we put on--as much information on the record
as we can. And it's substantial.
Mr. Kucinich. I might add, Mr. Chairman, and with the
greatest respect for the Chair, they're in a difficult
position?
You're in a difficult position?
If there's a single American serviceman or servicewoman who
is out in the field with a defective suit, I think they're the
ones who are in a difficult position. When you have a quarter
million suits that haven't been located that are defective,
they're the ones that could be in a difficult position.
Mr. Schmitz, again, are there specific military units that
currently do not meet minimum required levels of training to
protect against a chemical or biological attack?
Mr. Schmitz. Mr. Ranking, let me just clarify one thing. I
didn't mean to provoke an argument. I was actually making an
offer----
Mr. Kucinich. There is no argument here. We're all hire for
America.
Mr. Schmitz. I agree 100 percent. I'm making an offer to
you that if you have a specific allegation about the Department
of Defense misusing the classification system, my office is
empowered by statute to look into that as an allegation.
I'm saying I would be glad to consider such an allegation
and look into it. That was a sincere offer to you, Mr.
Kucinich, to actually be of service.
Mr. Kucinich. I take that as an effort--I appreciate your
assertion of sincerity. I'm sincerely interested in finding out
if there are any unsafe suits out there that are going to be
worn by American servicemen and women.
Mr. Schmitz. That is an issue I'd like to get into, any
details you'd like to get into, in the classified session.
Mr. Kucinich. See, this is wrong. I just want to say this.
I really find this, Mr. Chairman--that this is wrong. That
information that the American people need to know if their sons
and daughters are going to be sent into battle with defective
suits, that ought to be public knowledge. Should we find out
after it happens?
Mr. Schmitz. Let me say, and I believe this is proper to
say in an open session, our studies, our audits, have found
deficiencies. So the answer to your question generally is yes;
the specifics are what I'm not prepared to get into in an open
session because that essentially exposes vulnerabilities.
That's exactly why we have classification.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you giving me this
opportunity to ask the questions. And it is a matter of record
that we had a yes answer. And it's also a matter of record that
information that is classified could bear on the safety of our
men and women in the field.
Mr. Shays. Let me say to all the panelists before calling
on either Mr. Tierney--or I can go, if you're ready, Mr.
Gilman, I could go with you, but I'd be happy to have you wait
a little longer if you could wait.
Mr. Gilman. I'd like to make a statement and one question.
Mr. Shays. We'll allow that.
It's going to be a long day today. I want to assure all our
witnesses that I don't want you to leave that table until you
make sure the record is clear as to your position, and you will
be allowed to make sure that whatever you need to put on the
record will be put on the record. I do not want this open
hearing to not put on as much information as possible.
So make notes of things that need to be classified, so
defined and so on. I'd be happy to go to you, Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. You're not going to be asking questions, right,
yet?
Mr. Gilman. I have one question.
Mr. Shays. You have 10 minutes. Statement and question. You
have 10 minutes.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this important
hearing. And you've been conducting a number of important
hearings with regard to our readiness and our ability to
respond to any crisis out there.
This is a timely and appropriate hearing to examine the
status of our Department of Defense chemical and biological
defense programs. It takes on special importance, given that it
now appears inevitable that we're going to undertake some major
military operations against Iraq in the near future.
The last time American forces went into action against Iraq
during the Gulf war in 1991, they faced a battlefield that
could be best described as a toxic soup of chemical and
biological hazards. And while Saddam did not actively use
chemical or biological agents against coalition forces, such
weapons that were forward deployed in a number of cases were
destroyed by allied bombardment.
It was several years later that our subcommittee learned
that through the subsequent destruction of these chemical
stockpiles that thousands of coalition troops were exposed to
low levels of resident agents. Moreover, when combined with the
haphazard and disorganized vaccine effort, smoke from the
numerous oil well fires, from natural biological hazards
indigenous to the region and exposure to depleted uranium, it
was no wonder that thousands of soldiers later found themselves
suffering from various ailments and conditions related to that
kind of exposure. I hope we've learned from that lesson.
My concern today is the hazards facing our service members
should we force a confrontation with Saddam Hussein and his
military. Facing removal from power, I fear he will have every
incentive to use all of the various chemical and biological
weapons at his disposal. While respectful of the effort made by
the U.N. weapons inspectors, I'm in no way confident that they
were able to account for all of Saddam's weapons before they
were forced out in 1998.
Moreover, Saddam Hussein has clearly been busy in building
his weapon armaments in the past 4 years. If this
administration decides to commit the necessary force and
treasure to overthrow the present Government of Iraq, a
decision that I would fully support, then it needs to ensure
that those forces are prepared to face any contingency,
including a desperate enemy with a history that's deployed
chemical weapons in military operations in the past.
I look forward to hearing additional testimony from our
witnesses with regard to these concerns, but let me pose a
question for the panel.
What has the Department of Defense done to improve the
availability, the durability and suitability of CB defense
equipment since the 1991 Gulf war?
And, second, what has the Department of Defense done to
ensure deployed U.S. forces will not experience shortages in CB
defense equipment?
Mr. Schmitz, panel?
Mr. Schmitz. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Gilman.
Our audits indicate that each of the services has, in fact,
initiated a number of measures both in inventory control and
training in order to improve and to learn on the lessons of the
Gulf war.
Mr. Gilman. Is that your full answer?
Mr. Schmitz. Well, I have much more detail in both my
classified and unclassified reports.
Mr. Gilman. Tell us some more about your unclassified.
Mr. Schmitz. If I could, Mr. Gilman, I'd like to defer to
the person that actually wrote the report.
Mr. Gilman. That may be----
Mr. Shays. There's no problem if you ever need one of the
experts to respond. You just do it.
Mr. Schmitz. OK. Mr. Bloomer, I'd like him to actually
address the question directly. He's in a much better position.
Mr. Bloomer. We found that----
Mr. Shays. Mr. Bloomer, we want that mic a little closer to
you. Let me just say we want the people who know the answer to
the question to answer the question, whoever that is.
Mr. Bloomer. We found that the services had begun
implementing more vigorous training programs. There are still
improvements that can be made, don't misunderstand me, but
where we stand today versus where we stood at the conclusion of
the Gulf war is much better in terms of the training programs
that are in existence right now.
In terms of equipment availability, they've made great
strides in providing equipment.
But, again, there are improvements that can still be made.
Mr. Gilman. What kind of improvements are still needed?
Mr. Bloomer. I would defer to the afternoon session, if I
may, for the classified discussion.
Mr. Gilman. Are you satisfied that the improvements that
are being made are significant? Or are there some pretty
serious needs to be fulfilled?
Mr. Bloomer. They've made significant improvements, but
there are still some needs that need to be fulfilled.
Mr. Gilman. When did they start making the improvements
that you're referring to?
Mr. Bloomer. Well, we've been working in this area since
1994, and we've seen them progress each year as we've gone
through the process. So it's been a continuous improvement.
Mr. Gilman. So working since 1994, you still find that
there are major improvements that have to be made; is that
correct?
Mr. Bloomer. Yes.
Mr. Gilman. Does anyone else want to comment on my
question?
Mr. Steensma. Let me say this, sir. One of the things that
we would--is needed, and it's needed not for just this area,
but almost every area in DOD is, they need constant emphasis at
all levels of command, from the lowest level up to the
Secretary of Defense, that this is going to be the highest
priority. And it's hard for every commander--he has different
priorities he has to address every day, he has different levels
of funding that he has available, and he makes tradeoffs every
day.
But those commanders we've seen that have taken this on,
such as the naval commander in Bahrain there, gave it the
highest level of emphasis. That's where we've seen the greatest
improvements.
Mr. Gilman. What about other commanders besides the
commander at Bahrain? Are they fulfilling your needs?
Mr. Steensma. The Central Commander, he wrote us a letter;
Mr. Schmitz mentions in his testimony, he is tremendously
interested in this area. He thanked us for the work we've done.
He put heavy emphasis on his commanders to improve any areas we
found weaknesses in, and to address it at, I believe he also
said, at all levels of command.
Mr. Gilman. So were other commanders following that kind of
advice? Are other commanders following that?
Or you pointed out two commanders. What about throughout
the armed services?
Mr. Bloomer. I would say that throughout the armed services
we've seen it receive increased emphasis again as we've gone
through the process. Is it at the level that we believe it
should be? There's still room for improvement. But that has
increased emphasis.
Mr. Gilman. Does that indicate that there are commanders
who are not fulfilling that request? Would any of the panelists
answer that.
Mr. Schmitz. Let me just say this is a leadership issue. We
have identified--and frankly, this subcommittee's hearings have
helped us in bringing this issue to the attention of the
leadership in the Pentagon from the very top to the field
commanders. It is one of those issues that you just
continuously have to remind people of because, as Mr. Steensma
said, the commanders are always balancing priorities.
So we are very--we in the IG business are very appreciative
to this subcommittee for holding this hearing.
Mr. Gilman. I appreciate your support of our hearings, but
I'm asking you a question.
Are there other field commanders out there who are not
abiding by the request of the Department?
Mr. Schmitz. I would best describe it, Mr. Gilman, as a
sliding scale. We have identified two very stellar commanders
who have taken our----
Mr. Gilman. I've heard about that. What about the other
commanders?
Mr. Schmitz. There are a myriad of them. We've looked at
hundreds.
Mr. Gilman. I realize you've got many out there. Are they
abiding by the request of the Department to fulfill their
preparedness in this--in the event of any chemical or
biological attack?
Mr. Schmitz. As we said, many have room for improvement. I
mean, there are some that have done it to better degrees than
others. We are continuously focusing the attention of the
leadership of the Pentagon on this subject. We're grateful
because this hearing helps us do that.
Mr. Gilman. That's why we're here. That's why I'm pressing
these questions upon you, so that we can find out where the
lack of attention is being expressed.
What about the shortages in CB defense equipment?
Mr. Schmitz. There is a--there's actually a good
explanation for that.
Mr. Gilman. What is that explanation?
Mr. Schmitz. It has to do with shelf life and not wanting
to have everything expire at once.
But I will defer again to Mr. Bloomer as the technical
expert, let him explain that to you.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Bloomer, what about the shortages in CB
defense equipment?
Mr. Bloomer. If I can talk about the new overgarments.
Mr. Gilman. First, answer my question. Is there a shortage
of CB defense equipment at the present time?
Mr. Bloomer. Yes, we have found some items are in shortage.
Mr. Gilman. What items?
Mr. Bloomer. If I may, I'd like to answer that this
afternoon.
Mr. Gilman. All right. But there are important items of
equipment that are in shortage at the present time?
Mr. Bloomer. There are items that are in shortage.
Mr. Gilman. What's being done to correct that?
Mr. Bloomer. Services have implemented a number of programs
to find, for example, additional vendors who can produce the
items. We're trying to cycle the procurement of items, so they
don't all expire at once, so we don't have shortages.
Mr. Gilman. Are those shortages being made up at the
present time?
Mr. Bloomer. The services are working to resolve those
shortages.
Mr. Gilman. But there are still shortages?
Mr. Bloomer. You--yes.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
I would just like to ask if the very back row in this room,
if people are hear how the questions are being answered. I'm
seeing nodding of heads.
Mr. Tierney, thank you for letting Mr. Gilman run over his
10 minutes.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we're all
looking to get some answers here, so I don't have any
difficulty with the time constraints on that.
Mr. Schmitz, if I might, during your written testimony you
indicated that you wanted to state that each of the services
has a comprehensive training program that they believe--they
believe will prepare their personnel to survive and operate in
a chemically or biologically contaminated environment.
I believe--that's you speaking--you believe that they have
put in place the foundation on which programs can be built that
will provide for the protection and survivability of their
personnel.
I'm led to believe by the phraseology there that they are
not yet beyond the foundational level, and there's much more
work to be done in order for them to put in place some system
to protect the survivability of their personnel. Am I right;
they're a long way between the origins of a plan and the
implementation?
Mr. Schmitz. As I mentioned, some of the services are more
along that track.
Mr. Tierney. The Marine Corps and Air Force are further
along than the Army and the Navy, according to your report.
That's the next sentence here. How much further along?
Mr. Schmitz. I'm going to defer to Dave Steensma.
Mr. Steensma. They all have good programs. The Air Force
and Marine Corps, they have definitely put a lot more emphasis
onto it from the leadership level all the way down. And we've
seen greater strengths to the way they've trained their people,
both individually and selectively.
And I think the General Accounting Office mentioned,
there's challenges doing the collective training which is
trying to see how well somebody can do their job in a chemical
environment--because the suits are hot, it restricts their
movements, and things like that.
But I'll conclude my answer with that, sir.
Mr. Tierney. Does it concern you--it ought to concern you--
that during the recent war games the Millennium Challenge 2002
they didn't get into the kind of exercises that deal with
chemical or biological systems of usage?
Mr. Steensma. That would be of concern. I'm not familiar
with those games, sir.
Mr. Tierney. Well, this report--and I haven't heard it
contradicted yet--that we recently had those games, and as part
of them, they withdrew from allowing the so-called enemy or the
mock enemy forces from using chemical or biological agents on
that.
Should that concern us that we're not even prepared to go
through the exercises in an atmosphere that will simulate one
that we might find in Iraq?
Mr. Steensma. That would be of concern to me, sir. I do not
know why they didn't use the chemical and biological--attempt
to use it during the exercise to see what happened in the
scenarios they were running.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Decker, what do you say to that?
Mr. Decker. Sir, I've not evaluated the Millennium 2002 in
detail. But it would seem to be--if that is, in fact, true,
that they did not employ chemical/biological as part of that
war game--consistent with the comments that we heard from the
field in our previous reports, that this is a very difficult
issue to incorporate into your training.
It's time-consuming, you have to break out gear and use it,
which means you may violate the integrity of the gear, putting
it back into storage. This is something commanders do not
typically like to do in the field.
Mr. Tierney. Well, can either--either of you gentlemen
address the idea of how much we are lacking in the training of
our troops to deal with this kind of a confrontation? Where are
we on that?
I know, Mr. Schmitz, you indicated that you thought they'd
be there by 2005 or something on that basis. I think we may be
there a lot sooner than that in reality. So where are we in
terms of training our troops?
Mr. Schmitz. I think it's fair to say that the senior-most
levels of the Pentagon are focusing each of the services to
accelerate their training so that we are prepared and ready, as
best we can be, earlier than when my office got involved. We
have made recommendations that they get, you know, their
programs in place earlier, and we believe they're addressing
and accepting our recommendations.
Mr. Tierney. Right. So my question to you is, when are--are
they early enough? If this President decides to unilaterally
and preemptively go in within the next matter of months, we're
going to all of a sudden have all the training you need, where
you left off at your report to where we need to be?
Mr. Schmitz. Let me say our reports are a snapshot in
history. Based on our reports and the work that went into our
reports, I don't have any real reason to doubt what General
Myers said on the 1st, with the caveat that our troops are
never going to be 100 percent protected or protectable from
these type of threats.
Mr. Tierney. How about trained?
I'm very concerned that you left some shortages. Here you
indicate that they've got the foundation on which programs can
be built, but they're a long distance from actually getting it
completed to the level of protection and survivability of the
personnel. And then we find out they have Millennium Challenge
2002 games recently and don't even explore that area.
Mr. Schmitz. Let me just say this. We didn't look at
Millennium Challenge 2002, but I know that we've had a training
exercise in the Pentagon involving chemical/biological attacks
and--I know that.
Mr. Tierney. But it brings me back to Mr. Decker's point
that they're telling us, during those training exercises, they
have great difficulties doing what they want to do in the
training. They don't want to break the integrity of the units,
which I understand.
So can the two of you together give us some idea of where
we're at in terms of their having some training exercises,
which you label as the foundation, but they're not apparently
having them to the extent that everybody is testifying is
comfortable, because they have a lot of reservations and a lot
of things that impede their full-blown training exercises.
Mr. Decker.
Mr. Decker. I would say that we're better prepared today
than we were in 1990-91 against a chemical/biological attack.
However, based on the interviews that we did with the units in
the field, I am not convinced that the realism and the degree
of training that has to happen at the unit level all the way up
through higher echelons takes place on a regular basis so that,
if we go into war, it will be very easy to do.
Mr. Tierney. What about the requirements of the standard
set by each of the military forces themselves in terms of
training? Have they even met those?
Mr. Decker. We reported several years ago that was not the
case.
Mr. Tierney. OK.
Now, Mr. Decker, in your testimony, both written and oral,
you talked at least in passing about those 250,000 suits,
protective gear. It's still a situation where you say we can
cannot locate where those 250,000 defective pieces are; is that
accurate?
Mr. Decker. I won't speak for the Department of Defense,
but we have received no evidence that they have found, clearly
found and identified, located, destroyed those 250,000 suits.
Mr. Tierney. So is it possible that some of them are, in
fact, in line to be deployed where we might need them next?
Mr. Decker. I think that's possible.
Mr. Tierney. Do you know how many of those 250,000; could
be zero, could be 250,000?
Mr. Decker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. You talked in your report about the process
for assessing risk in the services, and you said that it was
flawed. Would you go into that in a little bit more detail for
us?
How are these services assessing the risk that's involved
here, and why aren't we getting a clearer picture?
Mr. Decker. Sir, allow me to refer to one of the diagrams
in the report. Our record for--statement for the record, it
would be page--individual pieces of gear, page 8. When we
identified this risk issue, you have to assume that when a
serviceman goes into combat in a contaminated environment, he's
going to need a complete ensemble to be able to be safe.
Mr. Tierney. You mean the mask?
Mr. Decker. Mask, overgarment, trousers, and boots
primarily.
What we noticed in the Department of Defense annual report
to Congress is that they were reporting at relatively low risk,
that there were adequate supplies in the inventory of the
individual items. But when we looked at those items and where
they were in what services it was clear, if you look at page 8,
that some services had a huge inventory of a particular item
and not of another item; and that if you tried to do the
ensemble issue, you'd start realizing that many of these areas
become higher risk.
So we recommended to the Department of Defense, really you
should go back and look at this process, this methodology. If
you want to assess accurately what the risk is to your
servicemen, meaning, will every serviceman and woman have a
complete set of gear, you need to relook at how you calculate
that. And initially there was resistance, but after some
discussions, they have accepted that methodology.
Mr. Tierney. And what more would have to be done to make
sure that each man or woman has the full, entire ensemble, that
the ensemble was, in fact, in good shape?
Mr. Decker. There's actually two issues, sir--
serviceability, but also size. You know, you can use a garment
that's one size too large, but one size too small probably is
not going to work on the battlefield.
And the issue would be the inventory management system
which--a hearing before this committee in June identified how
horrific that process is, that there is not one integrated
system throughout DOD to know where things are, so that the
right gear gets to the right people at the right time. It does
not happen. So you may find in one unit all extra larges, and
you may find in another unit no trousers, and you may find
masks of different sizes, perhaps not regularly available to
fit all of the members of the right size.
I mean, that is an issue.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Chairman, might I have two more questions
to followup on this?
Mr. Decker, you had a chart up there a little while earlier
where you were showing the number, the amount of gear that was
coming out of service, being retired, wasn't quite being kept
up to with the amount of gear that was coming on line.
Mr. Decker. Correct.
Mr. Tierney. Are we remedying that situation?
Mr. Shays. Could someone put that up.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much. Now, you indicated it
would be 2 major theaters and 1\1/2\ major theaters. I assume
that the line between 4 and 5 is where it would be for one
major conflict; am I right?
Mr. Decker. Actually, the Pentagon uses a 1.5 requirement.
Mr. Tierney. But that's in the 6, right, the No. 6 on the
chart?
Mr. Decker. No, sir that would be a 2. Two major theater
wars would be at the 6; that's a solid dash line. At the 4.5
would be dash dot; that would be slightly more than one theater
war requirement, but less than two, 1.5.
Mr. Tierney. OK.
Mr. Decker. That's where the migration is and that's based
upon, I assume some, you know, derivation of a new
requirement--instead of two wars, fight one war, but then have
a cushion of 0.5.
What we're showing there, though, is exactly what you said,
sir; the old suits are coming down quicker than the new suits
are coming in. We have no information at this time that DOD is
going to remedy that with increased funding and additional suit
procurement so that you don't have this train wreck in the next
5 years.
Mr. Tierney. Let me ask each of you gentlemen, how long--if
we expedited all the training that was necessary and put in
place all of the inventory systems that were necessary and
procured all of the equipment, protective gear, etc., that was
necessary, how long would it be before we should be comfortable
that our men and women sent into a conflict where biological
and chemical agents were used would be reasonably safe, or as
safe as possible under those conditions?
Mr. Schmitz. Would they at least have the equipment they
should have?
Mr. Tierney. Exactly.
Mr. Schmitz. That's a good question.
Mr. Tierney. It deserves a good answer.
Mr. Schmitz. I'll try to give my best answer, sir.
I think it's fair to say that generally the units that are
currently in position, the most likely ones to be sent into
harm's way, are the best trained and best equipped right now.
Mr. Tierney. How many numbers are we talking about there?
Mr. Schmitz. You know, we didn't look at every unit. We
didn't--our audit method is not to look at every single unit.
Mr. Tierney. The ones you looked at that are in that
category are, in your estimate, ready?
Mr. Schmitz. What percentage or--what percentage?
Mr. Tierney. I was trying to get to the point of--I'll let
you finish your answer rather than take you off track. Go
ahead.
Mr. Schmitz. I'm going to defer to the people that actually
did the audit here.
Mr. Steensma. I think I know we answered that question
specifically in the classified session, sir.
Mr. Tierney. It's general enough that I would think the
American public would be able to get that answer.
Mr. Steensma. I would have to go back to what Mr. Schmitz
said, that overseas we found a lot greater attention to the
training, the equipage of the troops and so on.
Mr. Tierney. And? How long would it take for us to assure
that all of the men and women that might be put into a conflict
of the nature that we're anticipating would be fully protected
and fully trained?
Mr. Steensma. I don't think I could answer that, sir. I
would have to defer to the Department, because they're the ones
who put priorities on equipping things, buying things and
training people. So I don't think I could give a specific date.
Mr. Tierney. But it's clear we're not there at the moment;
is that correct?
Mr. Schmitz. Let me answer that question. I think--that was
the----
Mr. Tierney. The expert no longer wants to answer the
question.
Mr. Schmitz. I'll let Mr. Steensma say what he wants to
say. That was exactly--the premise of your question is, we're
not currently ready?
Mr. Tierney. Are we currently ready is the premise of the
question. In your estimation, Mr. Schmitz?
Mr. Schmitz. We're never going to be perfectly ready, OK?
Mr. Tierney. I understand that. My question is, are we
ready, understanding we'll never be perfectly ready. You can't
be in any----
Mr. Schmitz. Could we be more ready now? Yes.
Mr. Tierney. Do you have an estimate of how long it would
take to be ready to the degree that you would feel comfortable?
Mr. Schmitz. You know, there's an old military adage, if
you wait for the perfect war, you will lose every battle.
Mr. Tierney. I'm not talking about waiting for the perfect
war. I don't think anybody expects the war to be perfect.
One of the problems is, we know it isn't going to be to be.
We know there are all sorts of unforeseen consequences. But the
ones we can foresee, such as the use of chemical and biological
agents against our men and women, are they trained sufficiently
and are they ready in terms of preparedness of whatever
protective gear they might have at this moment, or should we
have it in better shape?
Mr. Schmitz. But you're asking, with all respect, an
operational question to an independent office that does audits
and investigations, and that question is better addressed to
the operational commanders.
Mr. Tierney. OK.
Mr. Schmitz. I mean, it essentially involves an operational
weighing of risks against----
Mr. Tierney. All right. I accept that. I wanted to ask you.
Mr. Steensma, do you want to answer that with any more
specificity?
Mr. Steensma. No, I wouldn't, sir.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Decker.
Mr. Decker. Mr. Tierney, I'm unable to quantify exactly
when we would be ready. But in closed session, I will discuss
two specific issues that shade my optimism.
Mr. Tierney. That shape it or shade it?
Mr. Decker. Shade.
Mr. Tierney. S-H-A-D-E?
Mr. Decker. Yes, sir, shade my optimism.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Ms. Watson, you have the floor for 10 minutes
plus.
Ms. Watson. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to
submit my opening statement for the record.
Mr. Chairman, I think what we probably have is the wrong
panel here. We have their testimony in writing. I've gone
through their written testimony to the extent that it's
accurate, I think that our questions are answered. And I'll
just repeat very quickly some of the statements that caught my
eye. ``We have continuing concerns in each of these areas in
the supply of chemical protective clothing and the way it is
associated is assessed.'' ``We believe that the risk of
protective clothing shortages may increase dramatically from
now through at least 2007.'' ``Serious problems still
persist.'' And, ``We concluded that chemical and biological
defense equipment training and medical problems were
persisting, and if not addressed, were likely to result in
needless casualties and a degradation of U.S. warfighting
capabilities.'' ``The medical readiness of some units to
conduct operations in a contaminated environment, therefore
remains questionable.'' And, ``Military service members may not
be able to avoid exposure to chemical and biological agents and
has consequently provided U.S. forces with individual
protective equipment.''
And they go on to conclude, ``But the bottom line is, there
are many needed improvements that still remain to be
realized.'' ``The service members of our country may be at risk
in a contaminated environment.'' These are your reports, and
I'm just repeating for the public what you have said in
conclusion.
I would think, Mr. Chair, that we need to have the
operational managers in here and find out what is really going
on. I appreciate the testimony from these gentlemen, but I find
the way they're answering these questions nonconclusive, and
maybe they don't have the information we need.
So I would suggest that we dispense with this hearing and
wait to get into the classified hearing so that when I go back
to my constituents, I can give them the truth.
What is very, very bothersome to me is that we're rushing--
every single day we hear the administration saying, we need to
rush into an attack on Iraq, for we know Saddam Hussein has
biological weapons that he has not been afraid to use and has
used them.
Are we exposing our men and women at this point to
contamination and, subsequently, their children knowing that we
cannot protect them?
Now, don't come back at me with perfection. I'm not asking
about perfection; I'm asking about some risk assessment and are
we ready.
Apparently, you gentlemen cannot answer that question for
me exactly. So my suggestion would be, let's not waste any more
time. Let's get operational managers here, and let's go into
the classified session, and I will take back the truth to my
people.
I am not going to support going blindly into warfare in an
environment that can cause great bodily harm and our death not
only to this generation, but to subsequent generations. And I
don't need an answer; it's just a statement.
Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. I appreciate the gentlelady's
comments.
I think that you all, both the GAO, the Inspectors General
are providing a tremendous opportunity for us to know at least
what we can state on the public record and then the questions
that we need to ask behind closed doors. We would not even be
anywhere along as well as we are with the issue of protective
gear had it not been for the work of your predecessors in the
Inspector General's Office and the GAO. And I'll give you an
example before I get into questions.
But what I did when I met with the British and the French
and the Israelis to discuss protective gear in the early 1990's
they didn't want American equipment; they wanted their own or
they wanted another country's.
When I speak with them today, they want our equipment. So
we know we have good equipment. We know--we certainly know it's
better than what other countries have. And I say that with no
reluctance. I think that is, in part, the work that this
committee and you all have done to just keep pushing and
pushing and pushing.
But I also feel that both of you have--both the GAO and the
Inspectors General have put on the record some very important
information that says, we may be ready in certain instances and
we may not be ready in other instances.
I can't imagine, for instance, that we would be able to
amass 700,000 troops and think that they would be protected. It
tells me that given the type of warfare that we may encounter,
which would be potentially chemical or biological, that it's
going to have to be a different strategy, in part because of
the limitations that we have with our equipment, but also in
part because we're not going to give Saddam Hussein such a
large and tempting target.
But obviously we will also have some dialog with our second
panel in open forum.
Let me ask anyone on the panel, first, to be willing to
give me a little bit of an education as you would define
``readiness versus risk.'' I understand from the GAO that your
primary focus would be on risk. Is that correct, Mr. Decker,
your contribution to this panel?
Mr. Decker. Yes, sir. I think in past reports we----
Mr. Shays. When we look at risk, we're looking at
availability, suitability, and durability, correct?
Mr. Decker. Those would be some of the factors if you talk
about gear.
Mr. Shays. One of the contributions that you're making is
that when we look at whether there's a high risk or a low risk,
when we just take a certain part of the equipment and isolate
it and not put it as part of the package, that we get a
distorted view; is that correct?
Mr. Decker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. But what I'm also understanding is that it's not
like we add it all together, and we put it in one chain and we
say, whatever is the weakest link is potentially--if something
is a high risk, then everything is--let me just say a risk, not
a high risk. It's possible you could put together one part that
is a moderate risk and another part that is a risk, and that
can add up to be high risk, collectively?
Mr. Decker. Yes, sir. I'll give you an example.
If you talk about a mask and outer garment, boots, and
gloves, if you had no gloves, you would be at high risk even
though you have four out of the five components.
Mr. Shays. Right.
Mr. Decker. So all of the other ones would be adequately
supplied, but if you didn't have gloves, you're still at risk,
high risk.
Mr. Shays. I'm getting at something a little more subtle.
That, to me, is putting it all in a row. You've got a weak
link, you don't have the gloves and the rest is meaningless.
But it's my information that, in a sense, it's almost like
four chains down, and maybe if you--if one is pretty
vulnerable, the other three chains can pull you up, but if the
other one has a moderate risk or even is a moderate risk, the
two together can add up to be something greater than either one
of them individually. Is that correct?
Mr. Decker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. And so your testimony before this committee is
that the Department of Defense has accepted making sure we look
at the full package as a risk and not isolate it. And so that's
good news.
But when was that decided?
Mr. Decker. Sir, since the report that was released in
September.
Mr. Shays. So this a new process. So we have to go back to
the drawing board, correct?
Mr. Decker. Correct.
Mr. Shays. We have to look at risk again as now under the
definition and the process that you've defined, correct?
Mr. Decker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. Do we have a sense, when that's going to be
done?
Mr. Decker. I think the next panel will be able to address
that.
Mr. Shays. We'll make sure we ask the next panel.
In terms of readiness, someone speak to the concept of
readiness. I happen to think that if you've got risks, you're
not ready; so I'm mixing the two. You need to give me a little
bit of a lesson here. Who wants to do it?
I'm going to have you put the mic nice and close. Now, is
the smile of frustration that I may not get it, or that you're
not sure you'll be able to explain it?
Mr. Bloomer. I'll attempt.
Mr. Shays. If you would put the mic a little closer.
This is my understanding of--I am just trying to appreciate
the concept of readiness. And if you need a little more time to
think of your answer, let me just go to another question.
But before I leave this panel, I want you all to define the
concept of readiness to me. I'm sure the military will. But I'd
like to have some confidence that you can define it.
Do you want to answer the question?
Mr. Bloomer. Yeah.
I would say that, in attempting to define readiness, it
would go to the core of, is the unit or force able to conduct
its mission as it was intended and planned to be done? Is it in
alignment with how they envision executing their plan?
Now, a lot of factors go into that. Do you have enough
people of the right skill and are they trained?
Mr. Shays. Connect it as it relates to the whole issue of
chemical and biological warfare.
Mr. Bloomer. Another element that would go into it is
equipment level. Do have you sufficient quantities of equipment
to conduct your mission in any kind of environment, be it
chemical or biological or pristine environment?
Mr. Shays. It would go to the issue, for instance, if
you're properly trained and so on?
Mr. Bloomer. Yes.
Mr. Shays. I felt that the Inspector General was speaking
more to the issue of readiness, as opposed to the issue of
risk. In other words, you could have all your equipment perform
well--it's available, it's--the suitability is fine, the
durability is good--but if you don't have enough of it, you're
not ready, correct?
Mr. Bloomer. I would agree. Yes.
Mr. Shays. If you haven't been properly trained, you're not
ready, correct?
Mr. Bloomer. Or as ready as you could be.
Mr. Shays. Right.
If you don't know how to put it on, the equipment that may
work very well, if improperly put on, is not going to work, so
you are therefore not ready, correct?
Mr. Bloomer. Correct.
Mr. Shays. If--when we look at chemical/biological defense,
we want to look at contamination avoidance. In other words, if
we don't have to go into the area, we want to be able to--so we
have to--we might want to avoid it, we need to detect it, we
need to identify it, and we need to locate it, correct?
Mr. Bloomer. That's correct.
Mr. Shays. In terms of protection, we are concerned about
protecting not just the individual, but maybe a facility like a
hospital. And so there's more than just chemical protection
dealing with a mask and a suit, but also to make sure that we
can secure an area so, for instance, nurses and doctors can
work without having to wear masks; is that correct?
Mr. Bloomer. Yes.
Mr. Shays. And in a decontamination setting we need to be
able to decontaminate equipment that has been exposed to
chemicals or biological agents, and in some cases, the people
that have been exposed as well; is that correct?
Mr. Bloomer. Yes.
Mr. Shays. So these are very--these are a lot of
significant efforts here.
In other words, if you don't have the detection equipment,
you may have to force yourself to wear equipment that will
inhibit your mission. And it would be a lot easier to know if
could you detect it before you had to put it on; is that
correct?
Mr. Bloomer. Yes, it would be.
Mr. Shays. OK.
Let me just go to the DOD--basically, the IG has talked
about the Defense Logistics Agency, and you believe that
250,000 unaccounted suits that are not properly--are defective
were issued, worn and disposed of, correct?
Mr. Schmitz. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. The question is, what is the task required to
know where--in other words, right now, it seems to me, we have
to assume that the 250--we're being asked to assume that the
250 is no longer in the system, that it was--we used it for
training and we've disposed of it.
Tell me how we can get an answer to that question.
And if we can't get an answer to the question, do we have
to make the assumption that somewhere between zero and 250
suits are out in on the loose and that it's kind of like what I
would call Russian roulette, you've got one bullet in the
barrel and you know you just have to hope that when you pull
the trigger, that bullet isn't the one--the bullet isn't in the
chamber when you pull the trigger.
Is it that kind of problem, or is there a logical way to
get at and be assured that there is no defective equipment in
the system?
Mr. Schmitz. Let me just say this: This is an age-old
problem and inspectors general have been looking at this
problem since the Revolutionary War. You know----
Mr. Kucinich. Apparently they haven't solved it.
Mr. Schmitz. Some have been more successful than others.
Mr. Shays. And the blame is not on the Inspector General
and the GAO. The issue is, we have known for decades that even
during World War I, the DOD had the opportunity to grow and to
learn from its biological potential and chemical warfare
opportunities, and we have not learned much. Reports that were
done, we can't find. So we can go on and on.
The fact that you're telling me this has been an age-old
problem is significant in one sense, but meaningless in
another, because we are in the day and age when chemical and
biological weapons will be used. So there can be no excuse.
What I'm asking is, you've heard the other Members ask the
question about the 250,000 pieces of defective equipment. We
can make an assumption that some are not in the system, but we
can't make the assumption that all aren't in the system; is
that correct?
Mr. Schmitz. That's right. These are unaccounted for.
Mr. Shays. OK. So we're being asked on good faith and on
some logic that some of it would have been used. The question
I'm asking is, in a sense--we are asking, have we identified
all 250,000 of them? I think the answer is----
Mr. Schmitz. No.
Mr. Shays. No.
Now the next question is, is there a way to identify them?
And GAO, Mr. Decker, is there a way to identify? What would it
take to identify?
Mr. Decker. Based on our experience in trying to do an
inventory review of protective equipment, we actually got into
boxes to look at contract numbers, lot numbers, because there
was no system device, nothing in the inventory management
system that would provide us that accurate information, and
nowhere in the system that would say exactly where these things
were located.
Mr. Shays. We don't know where they're located, but if we
locate them, can we identify them as bad?
Mr. Decker. Once have you a contract number and a lot
number, and if it's identified as defective.
Mr. Shays. I appreciate my colleagues. So if we don't do
that, is it not a fact that we are then telling some members of
our military force that they may have the shell in the chamber?
Mr. Cawood. Sir, the military forces have attempted to
locate these sites by a variety of means.
Mr. Shays. I'm going to have you tell me that, but I'm just
saying right now, if we haven't identified them and we don't
seem to be having a program to identify every one of them,
isn't it a fact that, in essence, some members of the military
will be issued faulty equipment?
Mr. Cawood. It is a possibility. It's not a certainty.
Because we don't know whether some of those suits may have been
used, for example, in training and that there's no means to
account for which ones were used in that fashion.
Mr. Shays. But now the IG's testimony was, as recently as
April 2002, ``We continued to identify units that had not
segregated those defective garments in their inventories.''
The bottom line to my question: Is there a way--I'm not
saying that it won't be expensive, I'm not saying it won't
require a lot of work, but is there a way to identify every
faulty piece of equipment that was part of that particular
manufacturer's product?
Mr. Decker. Sir, not without a lot of labor.
Mr. Shays. But with labor, it would be possible?
Mr. Decker. Obviously, if you sighted each suit, which
would be extremely labor intensive, you could probably get to
the bottom line.
Mr. Shays. Does anyone from the Inspector General's Office
disagree with that answer?
Mr. Steensma. No, we agree with that. It would be labor
intensive, because they would have to open numerous boxes, go
through them with the lot numbers and identify them and pull
them out.
Mr. Shays. Numerous boxes would be?
Mr. Steensma. I don't know how many hundreds of thousands
are out there.
Mr. Shays. Millions of boxes?
Mr. Steensma. I don't know if it's millions.
Mr. Shays. So the end result is, we are going to be asking
some member of the military, unless they are issued totally new
equipment, who go into Iraq--if that happens, we're going to be
asking them to take a chance that, you know, one chamber has a
bullet. When they pull the trigger you know, they're the--
they'll pay the negative result.
So, I guess--let me go to----
Mr. Tierney. Just to followup on that, I sense that we're
going to be told in the next panel that--not to worry about
this, that they've accounted for all the suits because they've
had this training and they've worn them. Is that even remotely
possible, that's the case?
Mr. Decker. Sir, I think it's possible, but I would ask for
the evidence.
Mr. Tierney. Not verifiable?
Mr. Decker. No, sir.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Ms. Watson. May I followup? I had written a question to Mr.
Kucinich that I'll ask now.
I'm listening very carefully to you gentlemen. I appreciate
you trying to give us frank answers. What I'm surmising from
this to believe is that, no, we do not have protection for
every single service personnel that would be required to go
into an area that could be potentially deadly for them.
As in the Vietnam War and the Gulf war, many of our
military personnel came back and stated that they had health
conditions that were strange and alien to them.
Are you gentlemen recommending that as a result of going
into Iraq, our veterans then be given full benefits and care
for whatever might happen to them as a result of biological and
chemical warfare? Would that be a recommendation from you, or
would that be a recommendation from the operational managers,
or whoever would be recommending?
Because it seemed like there was some denial that Agent
Orange had an effect on the veterans of Vietnam. It seems that
veterans have struggled for decades to get some recognition of
the problems they faced because of chemical and biological
agents.
Mr. Schmitz. I think it is a very important question, Ms.
Watson.
Ms. Watson. Whom should I ask?
Mr. Schmitz. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs and the
Secretary of Defense. And, hopefully, our audits and our
reports will be useful in them reaching that decision.
Ms. Watson. Thank you. I appreciate that, because I am
trying to get to the right personnel to answer the questions.
And listening to all of you, you have prepared these reports,
but you can't give us the details, because apparently it is
classified.
So in trying to get to the truth and have some accuracy, I
appreciate your response.
Mr. Schmitz. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Let me--Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Then we will try to get to the next panel.
Mr. Gilman. I am concerned. You are telling us that the
defective equipment has not been located, but through
additional manpower, we may be able to detect where that
defective equipment is.
If that is possible, then what are we doing to undertake
that kind of a procedure?
Mr. Steensma. I think you need to ask the next panel and
the Defense Logistics Agency and the services what they are
going to do. I know after the last hearing they put out several
messages.
They've tried to identify these in the past. The problem we
run into when we are in the field is the word doesn't always
get down to each individual unit, which could be in the United
States or overseas here.
And it would take a coordinated program by the Department's
logistics people to try to get out and identify and make sure
all of them are pulled.
Mr. Gilman. Well, Mr. Steensma, why have some units not
received the advisories regarding these defective pieces of
equipment?
Mr. Steensma. Don----
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Bloomer.
Mr. Bloomer. I guess the easiest way to explain it would be
that not every unit has a person as part of the unit who is
designated as a chemical and biological professional.
Mr. Gilman. Wouldn't that be the responsibility of the
commander of the unit?
Mr. Bloomer. It would be. But a lot of the service notices
and recall notices that come down, come down through the
chemical and biological community. And it filters down that way
or it filters down through supply channels. They don't always
send them to commanders of the unit.
Mr. Gilman. So what you are telling us, Mr. Bloomer, is
that there may be some commander or some units that have not
received advisories about this defective equipment; is that
correct?
Mr. Bloomer. Yes.
Mr. Gilman. And, Mr. Schmitz, one of you on the panel has
said, if we utilize more manpower, we can find out where the
defective equipment is. Am I correct?
Mr. Schmitz. Mr. Steensma said that. I agree.
Mr. Gilman. Is that being employed, that method?
Mr. Steensma. Not at this time. You would have to ask the
next panel, because they are the ones that have the resources
they could devote to an enterprise such as this.
Mr. Gilman. So the defective equipment can be detected by
utilizing more manpower in order to make certain that our
troops, when they go out on the battlefield are not going to
use defective equipment. Am I correct?
Mr. Steensma. I would have to agree with that, sir.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Mr. Kucinich, you have more questions?
Mr. Kucinich. To Mr. Decker: The--the Defense Logistics
Agency has said that they believe the 250,000 unaccounted-for
overgarments that were issued that are in question here, the
ones that are defective, that they were worn and disposed of.
Now, how--how is it that they were able to come to this
conclusion? And is this conclusion supported by the facts?
Mr. Decker. Sir, again, I think Mr. Parker from DLA will be
able to address that more precisely.
But if you recall, back in May 2000----
Mr. Kucinich. I just want to ask you, is that conclusion
supported by the facts? They are asserting that all defective
protective suits have been disposed of. Is that statement
supported by the facts?
Mr. Decker. Sir, we have not seen evidence that the 250,000
defective suits have been found and disposed of properly.
Mr. Kucinich. OK. That--I just wanted to make sure that was
on the record.
Now, the Defense Department has agreed that they
understated the risk related to all of the components of the
protective suits. Is that correct?
Mr. Decker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. This is why they agreed to go back and change
the way they examined these questions. Is that correct?
Mr. Decker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, my question is this: Does the Defense
Department also agree with your conclusion on pages 8 and 9 of
your report, that, in fact, service members are at high risk,
not low risk? That was pages 8 and 9 of the report.
Does the Defense Department also agree with your conclusion
that, in fact, service members are at high risk, not low risk?
Mr. Decker. Sir, that was our conclusion. We have not
served specific response on that particular point. As to
whether they agree with that, I think that question would be
better deferred to them.
However, they did agree that the method of calculating the
risk would be better done if it were done by the entire
ensemble rather than the individual pieces.
Mr. Kucinich. By the entire ensemble. I quoted General
Myers at the beginning of this hearing, who said the military
is prepared. Based on what you know, Mr. Decker, on what you
provided to this committee, do you agree with that statement?
Mr. Decker. General Myers' statement, sir?
Mr. Kucinich. Do you think there are concerns that ought to
be----
Mr. Decker. Sir, based on the work that we have done, the
reports over the last couple of years about this issue of
individual protective equipment and the deficiencies, the
problems, locations, and--I would have reservations that
everything is exactly the way it should be for any future
conflict.
Mr. Kucinich. Has the military met the basic minimum
requirements? Can the military fail to meet the basic military
requirements and still protect the troops?
Mr. Decker. Sir, going back to my chart, you can see where
there are some serious dips below what the requirement is and
what we have on hand today.
Mr. Kucinich. And if they don't meet the basic minimum
requirements, how are our troops protected at all?
Mr. Decker. Well, the individual protective equipment, as I
indicated, is your last line of defense. If each serviceman and
woman who is in a contaminated environment does not have the
proper serviceable gear, than they are at risk.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, you have in your testimony here, that--
you mentioned the individual pieces, the suit, the mask, the
breathing filters, gloves, boots and hoods, and that there are
questions about the supply, the inventory--could even be
questions about safety in the question of suits.
Then when you look at the ensemble, you get into the
possibility that, you know, this may not all come together. I
mean--and here is what I was thinking. For the moment, let's
not talk about what is a very grim matter here, preparation of
our servicemen and women for battle.
Let's say we were talking for a moment about a professional
football team that was getting ready for the Super Bowl. And
let's say that the uniforms provided for this team, to protect
them when they are on the field of play, let's say players had
the wrong sizes. Some had knee pads, some didn't. Some had
shoulder pads, some didn't. Some had hip pads, some didn't.
Some had shoes with cleats, some didn't. Some had helmets, and
some didn't, or some had helmets that were the wrong size.
Now, the team really wouldn't be ready to play. People
would be asking, well, how could you--you are a Super Bowl
team; how in the world could you be in a condition where you
don't have the right equipment? You are not ready. How could
that be?
Well, let's say we have the best military in the world. Are
they ready to play in the Super Bowl in the Persian Gulf?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. Anyone else before we go to the next
panel? Mr. Decker.
And let me just say this. I want any of you to speak out on
anything that you think the record is not clear on, or any
question you wished we had asked that we didn't ask. I want it
on the record. So if there is anything you want to put on the
record, please do it. If there is any need to clarify the
record, let's do it and do it now, OK?
Mr. Decker, do you have something?
Mr. Decker. Yes, Chairman Shays. I want to mention that GAO
does not have classification authority, that is received by the
executive branch agencies that review our work. And I have to
note that in the area of chem/bio defense and force protection,
we were experiencing lengthy classification reviews by the
Department of Defense.
In many cases, our final draft products which we send to
the Department for comment, using unclassified material and
sources, are becoming classified.
Like the DOD IG, I believe it is critical that we protect
our products and prevent exposure of vulnerabilities, and there
is a way that can be done, which is called sanitization,
meaning taking specific details out.
However, we are experiencing, in some cases, up to 2
months' delay in issuing a report while it goes through this
very uncertain classification review process. And I would like
to see the Department of Defense address that issue, to be able
to provide a speedy classification review so that we can
provide the information that the Congress needs.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. Any other comment from our panel?
I would like to put one comment on the table here. This
was, when we had a hearing on June 19th--excuse me, when we had
a hearing in April 1997, we had Air Force Major Michael
Donnelly, testify before our committee. He suffered from the
progressive debilitating effects of ALS, or what we call Lou
Gehrig's Disease. Major Donnelly recounted a now all-too-
familiar litany of official refusals to connect his illness
with his military service.
He was a once-robust fighter pilot, sat before us in a
wheelchair, his body racked by the effects of the disease, but
he spoke with arching eloquence from a heart undamaged by his
plight, declaring, ``I am not the enemy.'' This veteran of 44
combat missions in the Gulf war described the shock and
disappointment of having to confront a fatal disease and his
own government's cold incuriosity about the cause of his
illness.
Now, he believed that ALS was triggered or accelerated by
wartime exposures, including organic phosphate pesticides; and
for many years that possibility was dismissed or ignored.
Recently, the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs have
acknowledged that he, in fact, may have suffered this illness
because of his duty and service.
But this is the key point. When asked if he would go to war
again, knowing what would befall him, Michael Donnelly did not
hesitate 1 second before saying yes. And so I want it on the
record.
I believe that most men and women in the force, even if
they knew about their vulnerabilities, would still choose to
serve our country and engage whatever enemy in battle. We would
just like to make sure that, one, first, that it is never a
fair fight, that they always have the advantage; and two, that
they never have any illusions about what can defend them or
not. And Mr. Donnelly, I think, stands as a memorable moment
for this committee.
I am prepared to go on to the next panel. I thank you. I
thank sincerely the work of the IG and all of your people, the
work of the Inspector General and GAO. It is--you do a
wonderful service for the men and women in uniform and for the
eventual success of whatever undertaking we choose. So thank
you very much, and we will get to our next panel.
I appreciate this Panel Two, its patience and its listening
to Panel One. We have Dr. Anna Johnson-Winegar, Assistant to
the Secretary of Defense for CBD, Department of Defense;
General Stephen Goldfein, Deputy Director, Joint Warfare
Capability Analysis, JCS, Department of Defense; Major General
William L. Bond, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army,
Department of Defense; Mr. Michael A Parker, Deputy to the
Commander U.S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command;
and Mr. George Allen, Deputy Director, Defense Supply Center-
Philadelphia, Defense Logistics Agency, Department of Defense.
If they would come, and we will swear you in, so you might
want to stay standing. Sorry it is such a cramped table there.
Is there any one else who may testify, as well, that might
assist you? If there is the possibility, I would just as soon
have them sworn so you--if you think that anyone else may want
to. Anyone?
OK, seeing none, if you would just raise your hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Note for the record our witnesses have responded
in the affirmative.
And I would also like to note for the record that all of
you are accomplished people in your field of work, you have
served, you are serving our country well, you have served our
country well; and we consider it an honor to have you before
the committee.
We obviously have some questions that we would like to ask
you. And I think you know the spirit in which we ask those
questions. So we are going to go to the 5-minute, if you make
your statement, Dr. Winegar--I apologize for not saying your
name correctly. Thank you for your patience in that regard.
We will go with Dr. Winegar, General Goldfein, General
Bond, Mr. Parker and then Mr. Allen. We will go in that order,
OK? And we have a 5-minute trip-over. We prefer that you don't
take the full 10 minutes, but whatever you think that you need.
STATEMENTS OF DR. ANNA JOHNSON-WINEGAR, ASSISTANT TO SECRETARY
OF DEFENSE FOR CBD; GENERAL STEPHEN GOLDFEIN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR,
JOINT WARFIGHTING CAPABILITY ANALYSIS JCS; MAJOR GENERAL
WILLIAM L. BOND, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY
(ALT); MICHAEL A. PARKER, DEPUTY TO THE COMMANDER, U.S. ARMY
SOLDIER AND BIOLOGICAL CHEMICAL COMMAND [SBCCOM]; AND GEORGE
ALLEN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, DEFENSE SUPPLY CENTER-PHILADELPHIA,
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
distinguished committee members. I am honored to appear before
you again to address some of your concerns about the
Department's chemical and biological defense program.
I am Anna Johnson-Winegar. I serve as the Deputy Assistant
to the Secretary of Defense for Chemical and Biological
Defense. I would like to focus my remarks today on improvements
to the management and oversight process for the Department's
Chemical and Biological Defense Program.
As a result of several initiatives subsequent to my last
testimony, the Department has made progress in improving areas
that are of interest to your subcommittee; and we will continue
to see improvements as recent decisions are implemented over
the next few months. Along with me today are other
representatives from DOD who will speak to their particular
area of expertise.
In order to address some of the problems related to the
acquisition of chemical and biological defense systems
identified during Operation Desert Storm, the Department's
Chemical and Biological Defense Program was established in
1994. This law mandates, as you know, the coordination and
integration of all Department of Defense chemical and
biological programs under the oversight of a single office.
Under this program, the individual services submit their budget
requests under one defense-wide account, separate from their
service accounts. In addition, we submit an annual report to
the Congress concerning all aspects of the Chemical and
Biological Defense Program.
Following the Defense reform initiative in 1997, the
position of Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear
Chemical and Biological Defense was left vacant, and my office
was placed under the Director of Defense Research and
Engineering.
In November 2001, the Senate confirmed Dr. Dale Klein to
fill the position of ATSD NCB, and subsequently, my office was
moved from DDR&E and now reports to Dr. Klein. This
reorganization, I believe, has increased the priority and
emphasis of chem/bio defense within the Department.
This increased attention also led to the increase in size
of my office staff from only two to now nine permanent
positions, plus additional supporting resources. To ensure a
focused effort in the area of homeland defense, the Deputy
Secretary of Defense directed the establishment of a
consequence management program integration office and directed
that the functions previously performed by that office be
institutionalized throughout the Department. And in February
2001, they further directed that research, development and
acquisition of that equipment be responsible--be dealt the
responsibility to be delegated to my office.
As a result of that funding to complete the modernization
of the weapons of mass destruction, civil support teams are now
part of the Chem/Bio Defense Program. Also, due to the
increased visibility and importance of chemical/biological
defense within the Department, the Under Secretary of Defense
for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Mr. Pete Aldridge,
in May 2001, implemented increased departmental oversight of
this program by formally designating the chem/bio defense
program as an acquisition Category 1(d) program.
This designation raises the priority and visibility of the
chem/bio defense program within the Department and identifies
the program as a major defense acquisition program. This
landmark decision provides oversight by senior department
officials over this critical and national asset.
Other recent changes have significantly affected the
security environment and the requirements of the chem/bio,
defense program. As mentioned earlier today, the QDR of
September 2001 changed the basic force structure to support
major theater wars, giving greater emphasis on smaller regional
conflicts. The services are evaluating the impact of this
changed force structure on system requirements.
Second, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and
the subsequent anthrax letter attacks have increased the
potential roles and missions for the Department of Defense in
supporting homeland security.
Funding for defense against the potentially devastating
threat of chemical and biological attacks post-September 11 was
added from the Defense Emergency Response Fund and Title IX of
the Defense Appropriations Act of 2002, which has allowed the
DOD to procure critical defense capabilities and to energize
the research base to address the most critical deficiencies in
this key area.
Another management change recently approached by the Joint
Requirements Oversight Council is the creation of a Joint
Requirements Office for Chemical, Biological Radiological and
Nuclear Defense. General Goldfein will address more details
regarding that.
Another key management change is the very recent approval
of a Joint Program Executive Office for the Chemical and
Biological Defense Program, in a memorandum signed by Mr.
Aldridge on the 19th of September. The criticality and
importance of an integrated and viable program to the Nation
has increased significantly, and the visibility of chemical and
biological defense within all government agencies has increased
far beyond the scope of the program originally established in
1994.
The program must be visionary, able to respond quickly to
warfighter and national security needs, and be streamlined with
authority and accountability. The JPEO will supersede the
existing management structure. The JPEO will report through the
Army acquisition executive to the Defense acquisition
executive.
Mr. Aldridge will continue to serve as the single Milestone
Decision Authority for the Chemical and Biological Defense
Program. This streamlines the acquisition process, and in
support of the USD(AT&L) responsibilities, Dr. Dale Klein will
establish and chair a permanent overarching integrated product
team consisting of representatives from the military services,
the joint staff, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
The Army will continue to serve as the Executive Agent for
the Joint Service Chemical and Biological Defense Program.
Major General Bond and Mr. Parker will detail key aspects of
the acquisition program with emphasis on individual protective
equipment.
Consumable NBC defense items and maintenance of fielded
items are managed by the services and the Defense Logistics
Agency in accordance with their Title X responsibilities.
Information on the logistical status of the services' chemical
and biological defense equipment is included in our annual
report to the Congress.
The most recent annual report implemented GAO
recommendations to list items on contract separately from those
that are actual on hand. We feel this gives a more accurate
picture of the logistics readiness for U.S. forces. However,
the annual report only provides a snapshot in time of the
overall readiness of U.S. forces. Mr. George Allen, from DLA,
will address more issues related to logistics and inventory
management.
In conclusion, as I have outlined, I feel there have been
significant changes in the management and oversight structures
of the Chemical and Biological Defense Program over the past 2
years. Do I believe everything is perfect? Of course not. But
do I believe everything is better than it was? Absolutely, yes.
The Department has made significant improvements in the
decades since Desert Storm. We have made improvements over the
past 2 years alone to improve the priority and importance of
protecting our service members against chemical and biological
threats. These changes have streamlined the oversight process
and improved Joint Service coordination. They will also enhance
the linkage between requirements and fielded capabilities.
These changes are still in the process of being implemented and
will continue to yield improvements.
I want to assure this subcommittee that the Department
views chemical/biological defense as one of our highest
priorities, and we
remain committed to continued efforts to improve our program,
to assure the best possible defense for our men and women who
will face the threat posed by chemical and biological agents.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson-Winegar follows:]
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Mr. Shays. General Goldfein.
General Goldfein. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Kucinich, members of
the committee, approximately 2 years ago the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff established a Joint Requirements Office
for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense
within the J-8 directorate of the joint staff.
The chairman's guidance included a specific charter, a
manning document and an implementation plan for this Joint
Requirements Office. I am assigned the additional duty to serve
as the Director of the JRO. Coincidentally, today is our first
official day as on organization.
The remainder of my statement describes our organizational
vision and objective as we look forward, which I request be
inserted into the record.
Mr. Shays. That will be inserted into the record.
[The prepared statement of General Goldfein follows:]
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Mr. Shays. General Bond.
General Bond. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished
members of the subcommittee, for this opportunity to discuss
the Chemical and Biological Defense Program.
I am the Deputy for Systems Management and Horizontal
Technical Integration, reporting throughout the Army
Acquisition Executive to the Secretary of the Army; and as you
requested, I would like to describe at the macro level the
processes we use in the defense acquisition system to take a
requirement or a technology and turn it into a tangible,
reliable, sustainable product that supports the warfighter.
I am here today representing the Honorable Claude Bolton,
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and
Technology and the Army Acquisition Executive. I respectfully
request that his written statement be made part of the record
for today's hearing.
Before I get into the details, let me put Mr. Bolton's and
my bottom line up front. The Army's intent is to make sure our
fighting men and women have the world's best chemical/
biological defense.
Mr. Chairman, you and your committee and other Members of
Congress have expressed concern over our chemical and
biological defense capabilities. You have challenged us to move
out with all dispatch to attain the needed capabilities, and we
have accepted that challenge.
I've spent over 32 years in military services, from
warfighting units and staff positions. My tours of fighting
forces in Germany, Korea and here in the United States taught
me firsthand that when our military is in harm's way, our
soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines need and deserve the very
best we can provide them.
It is my earnest hope that chemical and biological weapons
will never be used. However, history dampens that hope.
Therefore, we are attacking the task of developing and fielding
needed chemical/biological defense capabilities with a sense of
urgency and a determination to overcome any bureaucratic
obstacles that may remain.
The very lives of our fighting forces and our fellow
citizens are at stake. With that in mind, I will do all I can
do to make sure we are ready to meet our chemical and
biological challenges that we may encounter in the modern
battlefield.
To begin, I need to describe the roles of three key people
in the acquisition process. The first is the Milestone Decision
Authority or MDA. The MDA is often the Defense or the Army
Acquisition Executive, depending on the dollar value of the
program. This is the person responsible for the decisions
allowing a program to enter or proceed into the next life cycle
phase.
The next person with a critical role in the process is the
Program Executive Officer or PEO. The PEO for Chemical and
Biological Defense executes jointly the life cycle research,
development, procurement and deployment of major end items of
chemical and biological defense equipment. The mission is
accomplished by maintaining continuous and effective
communication with our warfighters. Each of the military
services, the research, development, test and evaluation
community, the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and of
course, Congress, who have oversight responsibility, are
involved.
The third key person is the Program or Project Manager. The
PM is responsible for the day-to-day activities of the program
and directs the concepts, designs, development, production, and
initial deployment of our defense systems within the approved
limits of cost, schedule and performance. The PM ensures the
warfighter requirements are met efficiently and effectively in
the shortest possible time.
As a result of our OSD-led review of the Chemical and
Biological Defense Program management, the Defense Acquisition
Executive directed implementation of a revised management
concept that will effectively use all three individuals
discussed above.
The Army is in the process of working with DOD components
on the details of this implementation. But our intent is to
structure a management organization that works. I have pledged
to the DAE that we will assist in developing a management plan
that will clearly define the roles and responsibility of all
involved.
In addition, we will assist in developing organization
metrics, which are few in number, simple to understand, and
reportable to the DAE on a regular basis. These metrics will
show the effectiveness and the efficiency of the organization
and provide real data upon which to recognize and make
organizational adjustments in the future, if needed.
With the organizational concept in place, let me briefly
discuss some of the responsibilities and processes we will use
to get the products to the warfighter. Each of the specific
commodity areas has a corresponding Program Management Office,
or PMO, and respective programs fall under their area of
responsibility.
The PEO and the PM use the Defense Acquisition System on a
daily basis to execute their responsibilities. The principles
that govern this process encourage innovation, flexibility,
tailoring, continuous improvement of the acquisition system
itself. This process is intended to provide effective product
transition from science and technology through development and
production to fielding and sustainment. Validated, time-phased
requirements allow for an evolutionary program acquisition.
Advanced technologies are integrated into producible
systems and deployed in the shortest possible time. The DOD
acquisition management framework, as shown on the right here--
and you each should have a copy here, which was distributed
earlier. As requested by the subcommittee, I will now walk
through you the defense acquisition life cycle.
The cycle is a continuum of phases. The phases are Pre-
Systems Acquisition, Systems Acquisition, and Sustainment. The
MDA can allow a program to enter an acquisition life cycle at
any phase, in accordance with the technical maturity and
acceptable risk.
The program life cycle starts with a validated user's needs
statement or operational requirements document or a mission
need statement. The requirements generation process manages the
generation and validity of--validation of this need, based on
capabilities required, and in some cases, a specific threat to
be countered.
Concurrently, as part of the Pre-Systems Acquisition Phase,
the PM begins identifying promising technologies in the
Department's laboratories and research centers, as well as in
academia and from commercial sources. Entrance into the Systems
Acquisition Phase indicates that the user and the developer
have agreed on a design concept and a technical approach, and
the MDA has approved the acquisition approach.
During this phase, the PM reduces the program risk and
ensures the program is mature enough for productions. The PM
evaluates, and if necessary, reduces integration and
manufacturing risks, designs for producibility and ensures
operational supportability, affordability and interoperability.
The system also undergoes rigorous testing and evaluation
during this phase.
The final phase is the Sustainment phase, which begins when
the support performance requirements are achieved and when the
system is sustainable in the most cost-effective manner for its
entire life cycle. At this point, management of the system
transitions to the service system command or the defense
logistics agency.
But the program doesn't stop there. At end of its useful
life, the PM ensures that the system is demilitarized and
disposed of in accordance with legal and regulatory
requirements. The acquisition cycle is continuous. As the field
identifies improvement or modifications, or as new requirements
are identified by the user through an evolving concept of
operation or emerging doctrine, or as advances in technology
surface and changes in the threat develop, we are able to
insert the required material improvements and manage them in
appropriate portion of the acquisition life cycle.
We have continued to refine our process of the metrics or
objective measures of effectiveness we will use in getting the
best equipment available into the hands of our warfighter.
In summary, we are committed to providing our soldiers,
sailors, airmen and Marines the best technology and equipment
at the right place at the right time and at the right cost.
This concludes my opening remarks. I am pleased to answer
any questions from the members of the subcommittee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bolton follows:]
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Mr. Gilman [presiding]. Mr. Parker, will you proceed?
Mr. Parker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee members. My
name is Michael Parker. I am the Deputy Commander of the U.S.
Army Soldier Biological and Chemical Command.
My boss, Major General John Doesburg, has a number of
responsibilities in the Chemical and Biological Defense
Program, two of major significance to your hearing today; that
is, he heads a group of component service general officers who
are responsible for the planning, programming, and budgeting
for the materiel, that is, the equipment which is developed
under and procured under the Chemical and Biological Defense
Program; and he has the laboratory structure which provides the
technology and the engineering support to the project managers
that were outlined in Major General Bond's discussion of the
acquisition process.
I would like to just touch on about a half-dozen of over
150 projects and work packages that encompass the Chemical and
Biological Defense Program as far as equipment and technology
development.
These six focus on the issue today that this committee is
pursuing today of individual protection. The Joint Service
Protective Mask is a current development mask to replace the
fielded M-40 mask and the MCU-2P. It is a significant
improvement over the field mask, providing a much lighter mask,
a better fit factor, a larger lens to improve visibility and
compatibility with weapons systems, significantly reduced
breathing resistance to reduce the burden on the soldier,
sailor, airman, Marine who would wear this in a combat
environment.
It also considers observations by this panel or this
committee, many of the audit agencies and one of our own
internal Army and other service reviews in the area of reducing
the burden on preventive maintenance in the field environment.
The design is such that it is much more robust and will reduce
the burden on the user to continually maintain the equipment.
It will also replace all of the ground masks, such that the
services will have a single mask, reducing the total ownership
costs and logistics burden. We anticipate an initial fielding
of that mask in about fiscal year 2006.
The next item is the Joint Service Chemical Environment
Survivability Mask, which is a mask that the combatant
commanders and field forces have asked for, which is designed
to provide a capability in a reduced threat environment. The
individual protective equipment that is fielded now is designed
against a maximum threat. There are many conditions where the
threat is present, but the concentration of chemical and
biological agents would be much reduced.
This piece of equipment is designed for a--to be a single-
use item, capable of protecting for a short duration at a
significantly reduced burden. We anticipate fielding that in
the 2005 timeframe.
The Joint Service Aircrew Mask will be a standard mask for
high-performance aircraft, replacing a number of masks that are
fielded, primarily between the Air Force and the Navy. It will
be fully compatible with all of the high-G, high-pressure
systems that are on high-performance aircraft, also reducing to
a single mask to reduce the logistics burden. We anticipate
fielding it in the 2006 timeframe.
The Joint Service Mask Leakage Tester is a system that will
be able to test masks to production standards in a small
compact piece of equipment that will be man portable and will
be much easier to take to the field, to conduct that operation
in the field. We anticipate fielding that in the 2003
timeframe.
The Joint Service Protective Aircrew Ensemble is an
extension of the lightweight suit technology program to create
a suit specifically oriented toward aircrews and the
environment that they have to operate in. That will also be a
2005 fielding.
The Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology
ensemble, which has been discussed somewhat today, is a program
of a continuous nature where new materials will be continually
introduced in the ensemble to reduce the burden, the heat
stress, the weight of the suit, improve performance such as
launderability, wear and tear, replace the current series of
three gloves with a single set of gloves--that type of
continuous improvement. It will also be compatible with the
maintained capability of the new General Purpose Mask.
One of the additional challenges which we continuously
introduce into equipment is the recognition that we are facing
threats, or our forces will face threats, in the field beyond
the traditional chemical warfare agents and biological warfare
agents. Toxic industrial chemicals can be diverted and can
present a challenge to our field forces if purposefully
employed, or if released as a collateral effect as we operate
in urban terrain where there are maybe large chemical plants or
storage of chemical materials that are industrial in nature,
but nonetheless very toxic. We are expanding the protection
capability of all of our fielded systems to deal with these
toxic and industrial chemicals.
With that, let me summarize and be open for your questions.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Parker.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Parker follows:]
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Mr. Gilman. Mr. Allen.
Mr. Allen. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Kucinich,
distinguished Members. I am George Allen, representing Vice
Admiral Keith Lippert, who is Director of the Defense Logistics
Agency.
I appreciate the opportunity to come before this committee
to address your concerns concerning individual protective
equipment and supplies used against a chem/bio attack.
Mr. Gilman. Can you bring the microphone closer to you,
please?
Go ahead.
Mr. Allen. I have submitted a written statement for the
record, which I would like submitted.
Mr. Gilman. It will be accepted for the record.
Mr. Allen. In your invitation to testify, you requested
that we address the progress we have made with respect to
equipment inventories, quality controls, serviceability for the
battle dress overgarment and the JSLIST suit in particular.
You also asked that we address or focus on the effect of
management, proper maintenance, ready availability and the on-
hand status of both the equipment and supplies. And in response
to these questions, I hope to make three very, very important
points to this committee.
First, we will do everything in our power to prevent the
outrageous criminal conduct that resulted in the presence of
defective BDOs in our inventories in years past. We have
reemphasized the especially rigorous quality assurance measures
in our contracting for these items. And we continuously monitor
the shelf life of all such items in conjunction with the
Program Manager and the military services.
Second, we have significantly improved our visibility of
inventory over these items.
And, finally, we maintain a very close working relationship
with the Program Manager and our customers to ensure as much
integration of these items as we can.
The most significant chemical and biological protective
items we have bought on behalf of the services are the BDOs,
battle dress overgarments, the JSLIST suits mentioned by Mr.
Parker, and the chemical gloves, although there are a number of
other items. We store a large number of these items on behalf
of the customers in our depots. We are now able to manage the
shelf life of these because we have begun to store these items
in lots by their shelf life expiration date. We plan to expand
this capability to managing these items by specific
manufacturing lot as we implement our new Enterprise Resource
Planning System.
The quality assurance and shelf life surveillance
provisions that we have implemented for JSLIST suits, in
particular, represent a significant improvement over those we
used for BDOs in years past. We have expanded the shelf life
surveillance provisions to everything that is also in the
inventory. We work closely with the military services and their
agents and other agencies in this effort. We take random
samples from every JSLIST lot that is manufactured to undertake
further testing and quality control before government
acceptance.
The component manufacturers have to provide a certificate
of compliance before the components are provided to the prime
contractors. The prime contractors have to inspect those
components, then they have to perform inspections throughout
the manufacturing process as part of our contract.
Defense contract management agency quality assurance
representatives are part of this process, and we employ
independent labs that provide live agent testing on the end
item as opposed to on the individual pieces of materiel.
Similar procedures are also in place for newly purchased
items and some of the shelf life procedures are in place for
items that remain in the inventory. Overall management of
individual protective equipment used for chem/bio defense is
really the responsibility of program management. Oversight is
provided by Dr. Winegar, as she has maintained. We maintain a
close working relationship for the Program Manager in our role
of acquiring and warehousing these items.
Over the past decade, we have provided several million
suits to the military services. There are currently over 4
million suits in the inventory, according to the Program
Manager and as testified to by GAO. That 4 million suits
includes approximately 1.5 million JSLIST suits, and there are
several hundred thousand more JSLIST suits on contract not yet
delivered. In the event of a contingency, we can surge
production to 1.4 million suits annually.
Our current replacement requirements for gloves in the
aggregate are approximately 1 million pairs annually. We are
negotiating contracts with surge capacity of up to 2.5 million
pairs of gloves per year.
Switching to medical supplies, which was mentioned also in
your letter, we use similar processes to work with the DOD and
determine requirements and to contract for those medical
supplies. We currently have contract coverage to meet the
requirements for all of the services in the event of a single
major theatre of war, and we are expanding that capability to a
larger scenario, should it be required. These contracts
guarantee availability of up to $630 million worth of materiel
if we exercise all of the refresh options in the contract. And
as I have said, this is the equivalent to a single major
theatre war.
Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, we are working closely with
the services to ensure integrated management of the chem/bio
protective items in a way we were not 2 years ago. We have
reemphasized and strengthened our quality assurance measures to
ensure the products comply with technical requirements for the
items; and we monitor the shelf level of all of these items in
our inventories over time.
And, finally, Mr. Chairman, we have made some significant
improvements in our visibility of the inventories of these
items, and we are poised to realize much more significant
advances as our agency deploys its new Enterprise Resource
Planning System.
Subject to your questions, that concludes my testimony.
Mr. Shays [presiding]. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Allen follows:]
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Mr. Shays. We are going to be calling on Mr. Gilman. I
would just say that one part that I will want you to address is
this issue of who is responsible for inventory. Because,
frankly, I felt like you were just throwing it right back to
Dr. Winegar; and I just--I tend to feel that basically, Mr.
Allen, it really rests in your agency.
And just before we ask questions again, really we ask to
give a shape to this panel. We asked Dr. Winegar to be here as
the Program Manager of the life cycle as we go through.
We look at you, General Goldfein, as being responsible for
the issue of requirements.
Mr. Bond--General Bond, excuse me--the issue of
acquisition.
And the testing and training, Mr. Parker, kind of in your
area.
And then the logistics, kind of, in your area, Mr. Allen.
That is kind of how I view this panel; if I am inaccurate
about that, I will need to be straightened out.
And I will also say, General Goldfein, that I was waiting
for you to read in your statement, on page 3, ``Approval of all
ACAT 1 ORDs rests with the JROCs.'' I figured that every two
words you had an acronym, and we only allow two per sentence.
So you didn't give me the pleasure of interrupting you then.
OK, Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to commend
the panel for concentrating on trying to have better
inventories and better quality material. However, this panel,
our committee is concerned about testimony we received at our
first panel.
In their prepared testimony, GAO stated that the Department
of Defense cannot easily identify, track and locate defective
suits because inventory records do not always include contract
and lot numbers. And in May 2000, DOD directed units and depots
to locate over some-700,000 defective suits produced by a
single manufacturer; and as of July 2002, as many as 250,000 of
those suits remained unaccounted for.
I welcome some comment from all of you.
The DOD IG stated that the Defense Logistics Agency, DLA,
reported to the DOD OIG that DLA believed that 250,000
unaccounted-for BDOs were issued, worn and disposed of. DLA
also reported that based on repeated messages and advisories
and through incentives to their customers, DLA believed any
remaining defective BDOs were identified and pulled out of
serviceable inventories. Once segregated, the defective BDOs
were to be used solely for training.
However, according to the IG, not all units have received
that information from higher headquarters; and as recently as
April of this year, the IG continued to identify units that had
not segregated the defective BDOs.
Why does DOD continue to have defective BDOs in unit
inventories? And why have some of those units not received the
advisories regarding these defective BDOs?
How can DOD ensure defective BDOs are not going to be
located and used in theater as we prepare for hostile action?
Mr. Shays. And you will note for the record that Members of
Congress can use acronyms, as many as they want, in a sentence.
Mr. Gilman. I want you to know it would be very helpful if
you could give us a summary of all of those acronyms so that we
would be better advised.
But, please, I address that to all of the panel. Who is
prepared to respond to that? You have made extensive comments
about the history of your agencies and how well prepared you
were are.
What are we doing about those defective units?
Mr. Shays. Do you want to ask each of those three questions
again separately?
Mr. Gilman. Sure. Why does the DOD continue to have
defective BDOs in their unit inventories? Who would like to
venture?
Mr. Allen. Sir, I think the best way to answer your
question is to reiterate for you what we have done to attempt
to purge inventories.
Mr. Gilman. I know what you are trying to do. Why are these
defective units still there?
Mr. Allen. The inventories would sit out there at the unit
level, as you have noted and as the prior panelists have noted,
that are in the control of the commanders. If the word has not
gotten down to the commanders, if the commanders have not
cleared out their inventories, if they have not taken the
incentive to return those units to us, that would be the reason
why there may be----
Mr. Gilman. Who is responsible for doing that, if not you
five panelists who are in charge of all of this?
Mr. Allen. The unit commanders, through their chain of
command, are responsible for the inventories within their
control, sir.
Mr. Gilman. But if they are not responding, isn't that the
responsibility of you panelists to make sure that they are
responding? You are in charge of inventories; you say you want
the troops to be better prepared, to be fully equipped to go
into hostility.
Mr. Shays. Will the gentleman suspend a second?
Mr. Allen, but basically the question is directed at you
because you are in charge of the logistics. And we need an
answer to the question of why. It is really not directed, I
don't think, to all of the panelists here yet, unless you can
direct us to someone on this panel that it should be directed
at.
You are in charge of logistics. We need to know why
defective equipment is still out there. And that is the
question; he wants to know why.
Mr. Allen. All I can tell you, sir, is that the way the
inventory process works is that we purchase this inventory
under the auspices of the Program Manager. We supply it to the
unit commanders--not all of it but some of it--we supply it to
the unit commanders; at that point, custody of that inventory
passes to the unit commanders.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Allen, is there some defective equipment
now in the hands of the unit commanders?
Mr. Allen. Sir, I cannot say for certain that there is or
is not. We have said what we have tried to do to purge all of
the inventory. I cannot give you any better answer than that,
sir.
Mr. Gilman. Why have some units not received the advisories
regarding this defective equipment?
Mr. Allen. We provided the information through the program
managers, through the military services down the chain of
command. And if the chain of command--if there was a failure of
communication there, sir, I do not know how to address that.
Mr. Gilman. Well, again to the entire panel. If there is
defective equipment out there and if the unit commanders are
not trying to cleanse that defective equipment from their
units, don't you have some responsibility to make certain that
our troops are going to be out on the battlefield without
defective equipment?
And again I address that to the entire panel. You folks are
in charge of providing decent equipment. And you said it in
your testimony, your major objective is to make certain that
our troops have the kind of equipment they need.
General Bond. Mr. Gilman, we do take this very seriously.
And I can speak personally from personal experience. But I can
also tell from my current job that the Program Manager, working
through the Defense Logistics Agency, makes inventories, goes
out and checks with the unit commanders, tries to find and
identify these stocks that have not been turned in, tries to
make sure that these bulletins are provided to the commanders.
I think that the Defense Logistics Agency's incentive
programs have made it to these commanders that are looking for
ways in which to further their capabilities, by turning this
in, can acquire additional resources, is a great way to try to
do it, and a help that the GAO and other audit agencies, even
within our own internal IG ranks, have gone out and tried to
identify within these units--those units which have failed to
provide or return these, and turn in these defective garments.
We will continue to do that. We are not going to give up on
it, Congressman.
Mr. Gilman. General Bond, we are approaching E-Day here, or
whatever day you want to call it, when we are going to be
confronting Iraq. We have 250,000 defective units that are not
identified or found in our inventories.
Aren't you fellows concerned about that?
General Bond. Yes, sir. And we will continue to work to try
to identify any of those.
I tend to agree with Mr. Allen that most of these, if not
all, have been purged out of the system through the normal
training process. Yes, there are probably--the possibility that
some may be lingering out there. But I would almost guarantee
from personal experience that they would not be in high
priority units. They would have to be in a unit that was not
training all of the time, for which those kind of stocks were
not brought up.
Mr. Gilman. GAO has stated that some of them may be
lingering in the warehouses, but you need some manpower to
identify them. Why aren't we applying that?
General Bond. The warehouses you would have to discuss with
Mr. Allen.
Mr. Gilman. Well, Mr. Allen, what do you say about that?
Mr. Allen. We have turned in all of the suits that--all the
suits that we have received, we have segregated or are or are
in the process of destroying them, so they cannot fall into the
hands of soldiers who might inadvertently use them, thinking
that they were going to be protected.
The warehouses----
Mr. Shays. Will the gentleman yield?
Why wouldn't we take those that are defective, clearly mark
them, put a big X on them or whatever, and use them for
training? Why would we destroy them?
Mr. Allen. We went through a significant discussion on
exactly that point, sir; and given the sensitivity of those
items, we decided to take the ones which were defective and
destroy them so that there would be no possibility that they
would ever, in any way, find their way into someone's hands. It
was absolutely a conscious decision. It was not made lightly.
Mr. Shays. The sad thing about that decision, though,
because you could make it so noticeable that you wouldn't have
to ever fear they would be used improperly. I am constantly
being asked to appropriate more money and to--we, the
committee, Members of Congress, to make sure that our troops
practice with live ordnance.
We also want to make sure that they practice--I don't mean
practice--that they train with live ordnance, that they train
with equipment that is the same equipment that they would use
in the battle. And, to me, this is nonsensical, what you just
told me, that they would destroy it.
Mr. Allen. Sir, one of--in accordance with that exact
thought, we took the ones that--the suits that were not
determined to be defective, but had been--had expired shelf
life. And we do use those suits for training only; we take them
out of their vacuum-sealed bags, we mark them very clearly with
big black ink ``For Training Only.'' But we chose not to do
that with the suits which were determined to be defective,
because we simply didn't want any possibility that they might
be used.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. What are your comments, then, about GAO's
report that there is still 250,000 defective pieces of
equipment that have not been identified or found? What is your
response to that?
Mr. Allen. The response, sir, is that I can reiterate the
actions that we have taken to attempt to identify, to account
for----
Mr. Gilman. Have you accounted for the 250,000?
Mr. Allen. We have accounted for 550,000 out of the 800
that we did issue over the past 10 years. We have not accounted
for the 250,000 which were issued and have not been turned in.
Mr. Gilman. So what are we doing to account for those?
Mr. Allen. As recently as last month we provided another
notice to all of the military customers through the military
services to turn those suits in if they had them out there, to
screen their inventories again, turn them in. We provided
transportation funds to--for them to utilize so that they could
do it at no cost, is one of the ways that we attempted to
incentivize them to turn that material in, should it be found
out there.
Mr. Gilman. I'm asking our entire panel, are you satisfied
that tomorrow, if we go to battle with Iraq, that there would
be no defective equipment out on the battlefield?
Mr. Allen. I think there's a very low degree of risk of
defective suits out on the battlefield, sir.
Mr. Gilman. Despite the fact that you can't locate 250,000
of these defective units.
Mr. Allen. That is my assessment, sir.
Mr. Gilman. I address our other panelists.
What are your thoughts about that? There's 250,000
defective pieces of equipment that haven't been located. Are
you assured that these--that these are not out on the
battlefield?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. I don't think there is a perfect
assurance if that's what this committee is looking for.
I'm personally appreciative of the comments that were
provided earlier by the GAO and the DOD IG on the effort that
would be needed to individually account for every single item
in the inventory. I cannot tell you this morning whether the
DOD is prepared to undertake that level of assessment or not.
I do share your concern. I would be very upset if an
individual service member were to go into an environment facing
chemical and biological weapons in defective gear. None of us
on this panel, none of us from the Department of Defense would
like to face a situation like that.
And I want to assure you that I certainly support the DLA
in their efforts to make an assessment of the inventory, and we
will continue to pursue that until we are satisfied.
Mr. Gilman. Well, I hope you will. This is an imminent
situation that could happen tomorrow, next week. And yet we
have some 250,000 defective suits out there that should be
removed from the hostile area. And I hope that you're going to
find a way to do that.
I direct that to all of the panelists.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Sir, I would just like to clarify that
the number is somewhere between zero and 250,000. I don't know
that any of us today can tell you that there are 250,000
defective suits anywhere in the----
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Allen just testified, out of the 800,000
you found, about 500,000, so it must be in that range.
Any other comments by any of our other panelists with
regard to our query?
If not, my final urgent message is, let's get rid of these
defective units and not allow our troops to be out on the
battlefield with defective body suits.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Kucinich, you have the floor. I'd like to welcome our
two Members, Ms. Schakowsky and Mr. Allen, who are both
welcome. I know they have been very busy on other things, but
happy to have you here.
Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. In the testimony by the IG's office, they
said that the Defense Logistics Agency reported to us that they
believe that the 250,000 unaccounted-for overgarments that are
at issue here were issued, worn and disposed of.
Now Dr. Winegar just said that the number is anywhere from
zero to 250,000.
There's a contrast here with the IG's report and the
Defense Logistics Agency's account. Do you want to reconcile
it?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Sir, I believe that the DLA testimony
was that, of 800,000 items that were determined to be
defective, they have made a positive accounting for 550,000 of
those at this time.
Is that correct, Mr. Allen?
Mr. Allen. Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Kucinich. I'm asking the questions here. So I would
like to say that we're on the record saying there are 250,000
unaccounted-for suits. You're saying it could be anywhere from
zero to 250,000, but it could be 250,000?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. That's correct.
Mr. Kucinich. OK.
At the end of the last panel, Mr. Decker of the GAO said
that the Defense Department had been extremely slow in
reviewing GAO's work for classification concerns. He said this
process has slowed to the point that sensitive and timely GAO
reports that relate directly to this chemical and biological
area are being significantly delayed, in some cases, by as much
as 2 or 3 months.
So, Doctor, why is the Defense Department slowing and
delaying its review of GAO reports regarding chemical and
biological vulnerabilities?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Sir, I'd like to say for the record
that I do not believe the Department is deliberately slowing
its review of any such reports. I think this attests to the
fact that we are taking the issue very seriously and providing
a very thorough and very comprehensive review by many different
offices within the Department of Defense. And that does require
a certain amount of time so that each and every individual who
brings their own area of expertise to bear on the question does
have adequate time to provide that level of review.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, the people at this table, the Defense
Department's top experts on chemical and biological dangers, is
the cause of the delays in reviewing the GAO reports, is this
the panel that's the cause of it?
You want to answer? You could go right down the line, yes
or no.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Sir, my office is one of many offices
that's provided an opportunity to review and comment on the GAO
report; and depending on the length and the complexity of that
report, as I said, I think it is incumbent upon to us provide
our very best assessments of that.
I hope you'll appreciate the workload that all of us have
and the care and consideration which we want to give to this
report. I can only speak personally from my own office. I do
not have direct control over many other offices in the
Department of Defense who do the security review, who do the
intelligence assessment, etc.
Mr. Kucinich. I'm going to say that your answer is
nonresponsive.
Now, this is a serious concern. The GAO is Congress'
investigative arm, and we rely on them to provide us with
critical information on vulnerabilities and dangers which the
servicemen and women serving this country face. We depend on
them for independent and unbiased reporting.
Now, Mr. Chairman, at the start of the hearing, we heard
Mr. Schmitz, the Inspector General, make an offer to this
committee to investigate any irregularities or improper actions
by the Defense Department in their classification procedure. I
mean, in view of the fact that we have Mr. Decker stating that
the Defense Department's been extremely slow in reviewing GAO's
work for classification concerns, and since there is a question
here of timeliness and GAO reports that relate directly to
chemical and biological preparedness, and since we know they're
being significantly delayed, and since this panel and the
gentlelady have not made a case for the reason for the delay,
and considering the critical nature of this moment, when this
country may well be at the threshold of sending our men and
women into a region where biological and chemical weapons could
be used, it seems to me that this subcommittee should request
that the Inspector General investigate and report on the claims
that the GAO made.
I just want to offer this for the consideration of the
Chair and the members of this committee, because it seems that
this is a matter that needs to be pursued.
Now, Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?
Mr. Shays. Four minutes.
Mr. Kucinich. There is a finding, Doctor, in the GAO's
unclassified report that is particularly troubling. On page 8
they describe a situation in which the Pentagon is
``understating the real risk,'' to our service members. Let me
ask you a quick series of questions on this.
First of all, do you concede that the Defense Department
has understated the real risk? I'm directing it to Dr. Winegar.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. I think that you have to put the
estimation of the risk in the proper context. And I'd
appreciate if could you read the entire sentence.
Mr. Kucinich. This is from page 8 of the GAO report.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Sir, I was not provided a copy of that
report until this morning.
Mr. Shays. Excuse me. This is a statement, the report is--
this is the statement of the GAO before us.
Mr. Kucinich. Since you haven't been provided with a copy,
I'm going to read from the copy.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Sir, I would like to enter into the
record that we did ask for an advance copy of this, so that I
could be prepared to answer your questions; and no copy was
provided until this morning.
Mr. Kucinich. But may I ask, in reply, whether or not it
would be appropriate to ask you to answer questions based on
things that are certainly within your operational knowledge.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Certainly.
Mr. Kucinich. OK.
The GAO said that we reported that the--they're citing
previous circumstances where they found that the DOD had
inaccurately reported the risk in most cases as low. And having
reported that the process for determining risk is fundamentally
flawed because, one, the DOD determines requirements by
individual pieces of protective equipment--suits, masks,
breathing filters, gloves, boots and hoods--rather than by the
number of complete protective ensembles that can be deployed to
the service members; and they go on to say, No. 2, the process
for determining risk combines individual service requirements
and reported inventory data into general categories, masking
specific critical shortages that affect individual service
readiness.
And he goes on to conclude, had DOD assessed the risk on
the basis of the number of complete ensembles it had available
by service, the risk would have risen to ``high'' for all the
services.
So, the question comes again, do you concede that the
Department of Defense has understated the real risk?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. I agree with the GAO's assessment of
how the risk should be calculated. I also agree that this is
the GAO assessment of what the risk would be if that
recalculation were done.
The Department of Defense is in the process of redoing that
calculation ourselves, and I agree that it will probably change
from our previous recommendation.
Mr. Kucinich. So you're redoing the calculation?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. That's correct.
Mr. Kucinich. We're at the threshold possibly of an
invasion of Iraq and the calculations are being redone. That's
fine.
Now do you concede, as the GAO does, that the data the
Department has used is fundamentally flawed?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. No, I do not.
Mr. Kucinich. Do you concede that the Department has
quoting from the GAO, ``inaccurately reported the risk in most
cases as low?''
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. That relates to the method that was
used for calculating the risk, and I have already agreed that
we agree now with the GAO on a different way to calculate the
risk.
Mr. Kucinich. That's fine. Then do you--rather than low
risk, do you agree with the GAO that, in fact, the risk is
high?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. I'm not prepared to say that it's
high. I'm prepared to say that it is probably different than
our original calculation.
Mr. Kucinich. So it's not low.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Probably not.
Mr. Kucinich. And because you know it's not low, you're
recalculating. Could it be high?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. It could be.
Mr. Kucinich. OK. Why does the DOD insist on ignoring the
GAO and making statements like those made by General Myers in
which, obviously, the risk is being understated, the risk to
our servicemen and women is being understated?
Why does the GAO make statements like that, since this is
something that is so important? We're talking about the
security of our men and women.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. I think that the GAO's statement
relates to one particular item, and in this particular case
we're talking about the protective ensemble for chemical/
biological defense. Without knowing General Myers' entire
statement and, again, putting that into the proper context, I
believe that the availability and readiness of chemical/
biological protective ensembles is but one piece of the overall
assessment of readiness.
Mr. Kucinich. One piece is the suit itself, correct?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. That's correct.
Mr. Kucinich. If there are holes in the suit and tears in
the seams, is that of concern to you?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Absolutely.
Mr. Kucinich. There's 250,000 of those suits, is that
correct, that are out there?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. You don't know where they are; is that
correct?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. That's correct.
Mr. Kucinich. OK. But the DOD has claimed, miraculously,
even though they don't know where those suits are, that they've
all been accounted for, that they've all been issued, worn, and
disposed of.
So, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your generosity with the
time. I have another set of questions if we get to that point.
Thanks.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
We have Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney, you have the floor.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I'd like to see that my colleagues
get an opportunity to question. I want to be brief.
Which one of you folks would be dealing with training?
Would that be you, Mr. Parker?
Mr. Parker. Mr. Tierney, I'm really connected with the
acquisition side as well. I think of the panel members here,
that their current capacities--we're lacking someone who's
addressed training as a functional speciality.
Mr. Tierney. All right. Certainly cramps one's style of
question, doesn't it?
General Goldfein. Perhaps not.
In this Joint Requirements Office that I indicated to you
earlier we have just formed up and are looking forward to new
ways of developing requirements for the Department, training
falls in a category of activities that we'll look at. I'd be
happy to attempt to follow through, then, with whatever your
question is.
Mr. Tierney. Let me ask you, I don't want to put you at a
disadvantage on that, but I'm curious to know, in your opinion
then, are you able to make an assessment as to whether or not
an adequate number of people have been trained--men and women
have been trained for involvement in a venture that might take
to us Iraq?
General Goldfein. I would not be able to judge that overall
picture, sir, but what I can tell you perhaps is a couple of
other points. One relates to Mr. Gilman's earlier question.
There is a very consistent process of reporting from levels
of command all the way down to fairly small units. You've heard
of the name, it's another one of our acronyms, it's a SORT,
status of readiness and training of units. And an item that has
been required in that category now for the past, I believe
about 1\1/2\ years, has been the status of the chem/bio defense
equipment that a unit has and the status of the training of the
unit.
So I think it would be safe to draw the conclusion that if
a unit reported its status as fully capable, which would
include equipment and training; and if, in fact, a series of
units were selected to participate in any activity--the one
that you mentioned could be one of those--and all of them had
reported ``ready,'' then, in fact, everyone who showed up would
be prepared to deal with the situation.
Mr. Tierney. And I guess what I'm getting at is, we're not
quite sure yet whether everybody that would be asked to show up
would meet that criterion of readiness. That's what I was
getting at, but I'm not sure you're able to answer that.
General Goldfein. I'm not able to answer that question.
Mr. Tierney. Should we be concerned, General, with the fact
we recently fairly conducted the Millennium Challenge 2002, the
warfare scenarios, that mocked the situation that we might
expect to find in a possible war with Iraq, that during those
exercises we did not get involved at all with any lethal
biological or chemical agents or any scenarios under which
those would be launched against our troops in terms of
readiness and training? Wouldn't we expect that kind of a mock
exercise would, in fact, engage in those types of activities so
that we could assess our training level and our performance
level?
General Goldfein. Yes, sir. I would answer in two ways.
First, I'm not personally familiar with Millennium
Challenge, so it would be improper for me to attempt to judge
that. I just don't know what was involved in the exercise.
I will tell you from general experience, though, that we
never get everything done in every exercise; but in a
collection of exercises, over time, we get at everything.
It could well be that this particular one was focused for
some reason on some area, and that there is another exercise of
great import that was conducted to cover that subject. And
again, I would speak to my own experience in various combat
units.
Mr. Tierney. I say this not to engage you necessarily, but
just for the record, because I'm reading off of reports about
those exercises that basically indicate that Paul Van Riper,
who is the retired Marine lieutenant general who was playing
the Millennium military commander at that time, fully
anticipated that he was going to be able to use them; and he
asked to use chemical weapons and he was refused on that.
And so it seems that, clearly, there was something--at
least it was anticipated that they were trying to do a full
exercise of what might have been met at that point in time and
were refused.
I have some concerns of that, but I clearly don't want to
put you at a disadvantage.
Mr. Chairman, I know I sent a letter to you asking whether
or not we would have the opportunity to question people that
might have been engaged with that exercise. Do you know whether
or not we're going to be able to do that and when?
Mr. Shays. The gentleman has asked the question. I don't
think in the next month, only because we may be here only 2
weeks and we already have schedules.
But if you're asking me, should we have a hearing,
absolutely. I would be prepared, even if I'm in a minority, to
have a hearing next year or this year. When we get back, I'd be
happy to work on a hearing with the gentleman.
Mr. Tierney. My only concern is, I certainly would think we
would want to do it sooner rather than later, because we want
to know why people are stopped from exploring those avenues at
a time when we definitely ought to be able to see whether or
not we're prepared.
Mr. Shays. In terms of two things, we wanted to focus in on
the issues we're focusing in on now. The people you asked
originally could not come today.
But the bottom line is, you have identified a very logical
hearing for this committee, and I would be happy to work with
you to have one. Obviously, I know the sooner the better. I can
just tell you, though, if I'm not here in the next 2 weeks I'm
not going to be here the next 5 weeks.
Mr. Tierney. Just, Mr. Allen, a question on the number of
suits--I don't want to beat that question to death--the number
of suits that are in our inventory now, protective gear, I
thought I heard you say 1.5 million.
Mr. Allen. No. In fact, perhaps I can help clarify the
whole issue of the unaccounted-for suits.
If you go back to 1989, when the first defective suits were
produced by a company named Isratex, since that time we have
issued several million suits to the military services for use
in Desert Storm, Bosnia, etc. Of those several million suits
that were issued over that period of time, up to today, 800,000
were Isratex suits. Of those several million suits, 1.5 million
are new JSLIST suits.
Mr. Tierney. Are you saying several or seven?
Mr. Allen. Several. I'm going to try to step you through
the whole process in an attempt to clarify the issue of where
we are with respect to accountability for suits.
We have issued several million, I would estimate 6 to 8
million suits over that period of time. Of those several
million suits, 800,000 are Isratex suits. Of those several
million suits, another 1.5 million were current new JSLIST
suits. The balance were other BDOs by other manufacturers.
There are--we can clearly tell there are about 4 million
suits in the system today. So some millions of suits have been
consumed. Some hundreds of thousands or millions of suits have
been consumed since 1989.
Because we went through such a rigorous process on multiple
occasions to recall the very specific suits which were found to
be defective, and because we know that there have been consumed
3 to 4 million suits over that period of time, we have a
relatively high level of confidence that we have captured the
defective Isratex suits.
The problem that we stand before this committee with is, we
cannot account for the Isratex suits on a one-for-one basis.
There is--short of some individual putting their eye on every
single suit in the system today, we would not be able to ever
make that statement.
I hope that clarifies what----
Mr. Tierney. It helps. I want to thank you, but it still
gets us to the number, of the 800,000 Isratex suits, 250,000
have yet to be accounted for. And you're assuming that
someplace between zero and 250,000 have washed out in the
general usage of training and----
Mr. Allen. That is exactly correct, sir.
Mr. Tierney. So 30 to 250,000 leaves us with a pretty high
margin, leaves us with anywhere between as high as 16 percent
of our suits that are out there, if it's a whole 250,000. So
that would be pretty dramatic.
It would seem to me that somewhere--Dr. Winegar, probably
starting with you and through Mr. Allen on down--somebody would
have the responsibility to then say, I want those 250,000
suits, and here's the plan; and move it down there.
So what is the plan to get those 250,000 suits, identify
them, and take them off the shelf?
Mr. Allen. At this point, we have repeatedly gone out to
the services through the communications channels and asked for
a 100 percent identification of those suits, and we think we
have recovered all of them.
Mr. Tierney. If you counted them, you're 250,000 short, so
you know you haven't got them all. Because I assume you went
out and asked for them, you counted the number you got a
response for, and that's how you got from the 800,000 down to
250, right?
Mr. Allen. If the suits had been consumed, they can't
identify them to us, they can't turn them in to us.
Mr. Tierney. You have no way of telling whether they've
been consumed or not. Your problem is, you don't know whether
the people on the unit level are being responsive or not; you
don't know--in identifying them, you don't know if they can. So
until those suits go out by just--by the fact of expiring or
something of that nature, you're not ever going to be certain.
Mr. Allen. We will never be able to make positive
identification unless we can actually put our hands on the
250,000 suits.
Mr. Tierney. When would be the last expiration date of
those suits? How long are they anticipated to live?
Mr. Allen. Let me think for 1 minute.
The last--the final expiration dates for the suits
purchased in the 1989 contract would be this year or next year;
and 2 years hence for the suits manufactured in the 1992
contract, or 3 years hence.
Mr. Tierney. When the expiration date comes, do you have
just a regular routine with--those suits are then taken off the
shelf, marked training units and moved on?
Mr. Allen. Yes, and it's the same routine we use to
identify suits that we want to recall.
Mr. Tierney. So we won't be certain for a number--for
another several years that we've got them all. The only way
we'll be certain is when that time period comes and you have
some certainty that all of the manufactured suits for those
particular years have been marked ``training,'' taken off the
shelf and used for training only?
Mr. Allen. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. And you have in place now a system where we
thought--I was taking note of Mr. Decker's chart indicating
that the expiration date seems to be happening at one pace and
the replacement rate at another. We have some plan in place, I
hope, to make sure that we get those numbers up.
Can you tell us what that is and what you're doing?
Mr. Allen. Yes. We have a--we've done a number of things to
increase the capacity to produce suits. We have added
manufacturers and we've added--one of the limiters for
producing suits is the liner itself, the lining material. We've
added--there's a separate plant now in production, and we're
looking at another manufacturer of that as well in an attempt
to increase our production capacity.
We are replacing suits at a rate which today could
replace----
Mr. Shays. Would the gentleman just yield a second? It's a
timely response. Are these domestic manufacturers or are they
overseas?
Mr. Allen. The end-item manufacturers are all domestic
manufacturers. The liner material itself is originally made by
a plant in Germany, who has established a second plant in the
United States; and we are looking at an additional manufacturer
of a comparable material to establish itself in the United
States.
Mr. Shays. Are any suits made overseas?
Mr. Allen. No suits are made overseas.
Mr. Shays. Any materials made overseas?
Mr. Allen. Yes, some material made overseas.
Mr. Shays. If I hadn't asked you that second point about
suits and gone to the material, would you have volunteered that
the material was made overseas?
Mr. Allen. Certainly if it came up in the conversation. I
mean----
Mr. Shays. I mean, sometimes we always think that----
Mr. Allen. It is not an issue that I have any concern about
revealing, sir.
Mr. Shays. In this day and age of terrorism, I have a
concern about where they're made.
Mr. Allen. We do too, sir, which is why we're looking to
expand our industrial capacity to operate solely on our own.
Mr. Shays. That's why it's pertinent that they are in fact
being made overseas, the material.
The gentleman's light has been on for a while.
Mr. Tierney. One more question.
Dr. Winegar, we talked about the process for assessing
risk, and you agreed that it was somewhat flawed and you were
going to take corrective measures to come up with new risk
assessments.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. That's correct.
Mr. Tierney. When do you think that will be fully
implemented, so you're able to look at all of--the entire
ensemble, as Mr. Decker was saying, and give us an assessment
as whether it's low risk, no risk, medium risk or high risk?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. We're certainly in the process of
doing that now. It would be no later than when we submit our
next annual report to Congress, which would be early February,
but hopefully before that.
Mr. Tierney. When you say, ``hopefully before that,'' the
end of this year, or just like January instead of February.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Hopefully, by the end of this year.
Mr. Shays. I'm going to recognize myself and yield in a
second to Mr. Platts.
One of the previous hearings we had on the whole issue of
what terrorists could do in our ports, both our boat ports and
our container ports. We also had a hearing on how we ship our
own military hardware overseas; and 90 percent of what we ship
goes over--what we send overseas, 90 percent, we learned, goes
by non-U.S. carriers, which is of concern.
And that's--I'm, you know, happy that you're identifying
this concern as well, wanting to make sure something so
important is made in the United States.
I am wrestling with--before I tell what you I'm wrestling
with, I will go with Mr. Platts. Then I'll see how much time I
can wrestle with what I have left.
Mr. Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be brief. I
actually just want to followup Mr. Tierney's line of
questioning with Mr. Allen.
In trying to get an understanding about this 250,000, if I
took your answer correctly, you're saying that you don't have
your hands on this number up to 250,000, but what you have done
is, through the chain of command been informed that every unit
that's been issued these has checked all of their suits, have
not found any more of the defective manufactured suits?
Mr. Allen. That's correct, sir.
Mr. Platts. So you have pursued it?
Mr. Allen. Multiple times, sir.
Mr. Platts. So the people out with the individual units
have come back, are you able to confirm that every unit has
responded in that, yes, we've done the review, personally
looked at every--what type of communication has come back?
Mr. Allen. We went out through the military services, and
they would be the ones that would certify or, if you will, hear
from all of their units. As far as we know, all of their units
have reported back to them, according to the information we
have been provided by the military services.
We work through their chain of command.
Mr. Platts. Would any other panelists be able to comment
further about that aspect of the actual checking of the suits?
General Goldfein. Sir, I'll give you a personal experience.
I came to this duty having previously been commander of one
of our largest fighter wings. We often received very clear
instruction to search for a particular lot or a particular
suit. We very closely control all of these items, and we had a
very straightforward procedure to go through.
Then we had a reporting requirement back, that I referenced
earlier to Mr. Tierney's question. And through that process, we
went--again, I'm speaking from my own experience, but I would
be very comfortable betting that other units operated in
exactly the same way.
Mr. Platts. Given that it would be a life-preserving--kind
of like making sure your gun is well cleaned and operating, it
would be something that would be taken very seriously by the
people on the front lines.
General Goldfein. Yes, sir, absolutely.
Again, we exercised--speaking for the wing I commanded, we
exercised often. I have countless hours wearing the equipment,
days. And in every exercise we always had a series of inputs
that would force us through this problem.
I can recall on the top when the Air Combat Command
inspector inspected my wing, we had at least three times where
we were tasked with a defective something to see if, A, can we
recognize we have a tasking; B, how did we process it; C, how
did we get the young folks out of the wrong stuff and into the
right stuff; D, how did we report it or destroy equipment or
pass it where it's supposed to be passed.
This is a very routine experience in my experience.
Mr. Platts. So back to that typical, normal process, back
to DLA is what you've been told by each of the services,
they've done that review. And my understanding is, this
specific manufacturer's suit would be clearly identifiable if a
suit was looked at.
Mr. Allen. Yes, sir.
Mr. Platts. There wouldn't----
Mr. Allen. There would be no question. We identify them by
contract number, so people can easily read the number on the
package and identify that suit.
Mr. Platts. Would the suit itself, like if it was----
Mr. Allen. Let me--just the suit itself--that's OK.
The suit itself is vacuum packed. It looks like a miniature
green duffle bag that's been shrink-wrapped. It's about so big,
about so big around. And it has the contract number on it, I
believe.
Mr. Platts. On that individual pack?
Mr. Allen. On every pack. So it would be easily
identifiable.
Mr. Platts. Is it accurate to say, what we're asking you to
account for, the 250,000, is asking you to kind of prove a
negative in the sense of, if they've been destroyed, you'll
never be able to prove you have all 250,000, because if you've
looked at them, you can say, we've looked at all the ones we
have, none of those are in the 250,000 lots that we're looking
for. So the best answer you can give is that, you know, we've
proven that they're not in our possession, but you can't prove
what happened to them.
Mr. Allen. That's exactly correct, sir.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. I think what I'm going to do is have my own full
time. So I consider that Mr. Platts' time.
And we'll go right now to Ms. Watson.
Ms. Watson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me
apologize for not being here for this part of the panel. But I
am concerned, from the first panel, about if we are really
prepared.
And so let me ask of any one of you that would like to
answer, what can our suits do, and can they protect against the
lethal biological weapons that we believe Saddam Hussein has at
the current time? And can we cover the necessary number of
troops that will be there on the ground?
Mr. Parker. Ms. Watson, the suits are qualified against a
requirement document which specifies what the suit or the
protective ensemble has to meet as criteria. That's driven out
of a threat analysis looking at a broad array of threats.
The threat that Iraq might present is well within the
operational requirement characteristics of the ensemble,
whether that's the lightweight ensemble or the battle dress
overgarment ensemble. It's very rigorously tested against it.
In fact, the criteria were developed against the Soviet
Union, a much more rigorous threat than a country like Iraq
could present, or probably any other country in the world at
this point in time.
So I would say emphatically that the suits can--the
protective ensembles can meet or exceed any threat that the
Iraqis could present, when employed by a trained force and
properly maintained in the use environment.
The quantity of suits that are available, if you're
speaking specifically against the Iraqi circumstance----
Ms. Watson. Yes.
Mr. Parker. The quantities of the suits that are available
in the inventory, given the likely size of the force that has
been talked about--at least in the newspapers, let me put it
that way--is more than enough to deal with the demands of that
type of a warfight.
Ms. Watson. I continue to hear it being said that Saddam
Hussein possesses chemicals and biological weapons that are
deadly, and he has used them on his own people. Let me say
then, in light what we heard from the first panel that did risk
assessments, there are 250,000 suits that are missing, and they
feel that at this point there still is risk in terms of the
protective suiting.
So let me ask this, is it General Bond?
General Bond. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Watson. Let's just sum up everything we've heard this
morning and afternoon. Would you advise the commander in chief
to send our troops today into that highly, shall I say,
dangerous chemical and biological environment that we have been
told on a daily basis is awaiting us?
General Bond. Ma'am, that's really not my forte right now.
But I can give you my personal belief in knowing from my 32
years of experience, extensive tours in Korea in dealing with
this.
Ms. Watson. That's acceptable.
General Bond. I feel we can meet the threat that's out
there with an acceptable risk. Can we do everything? We'll
never know whether we'll be fully prepared. But I know from
personal experience, the training that we undergo and the
training that we give our soldiers and what they're undergoing
right now today, as we prepare for what the likelihood--that we
feel that this is one of the highest criteria categories of
training that they're undergoing, and that I feel assured, if
it was my son or daughter out there, that they would be
protected.
Ms. Watson. Did we have this technology during the Gulf
war?
General Bond. Not to the extent that we have. We've made
significant progress since the Gulf war from where we are
today. Could we have gone further? Yes.
You know, there are a lot of things we could have done,
knowing what we know today. But my personal experience is, I
think--given the information that we had and the way that we
have moved forward, I think in this area of technology and
where we've made great strides.
Ms. Watson. I have to be constantly reminded that many of
the veterans came back concerned of a lowered health condition.
I am recalling the Vietnam veterans and Agent Orange and so on.
And for years, our government denied that these conditions did
exist, and might have been a result of biological and chemical
warfare.
And anyone that would like to answer, are all of you
comfortable with sending our sons and daughters over in this
environment with what we have today?
Mr. Parker. Ms. Watson, I've worn predecessor versions of
the current fielded equipment more than a dozen times in an
immediately lethal environment with nerve agent sarin. Older
forms of military equipment, more than a dozen times, in an
environment that would have killed you within minutes. And I am
absolutely confident that the versions we have in the field now
are more than adequate to address the threat, without question.
Ms. Watson. Could I quote you?
Mr. Parker. Absolutely.
Ms. Watson. All right. Because it seems to me that our
veterans had tremendous trouble and are still having trouble,
and I would like my constituents to be assured that--and it
will be my constituents that will be on the front line; I
guarantee you that--assured that when they send their sons and
daughters, that their sons and daughters will be well
protected, and their offspring in the future. And we're finding
that this has not been the case in the past.
And for me to support us going in on a preemptive strike, I
want to be sure we're not putting--we're already putting our
people into harm's way, but I want to be sure the side effects
of the chemical and biological warfare will not be the deadly
touch.
I will quote you. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. I would like to recognize myself now.
Mr. Allen, I--and, kind of, I'll consider you bookends
here, Ms. Winegar as well--I view you as being in charge of the
entire chemical/biological program of the U.S. Government
defense. Is that the way I should view you?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. Well, that's a tremendous
responsibility, and thank you for the compliment. I do have----
Mr. Shays. Just give me a short answer. Tell me your
responsibility. If you want to define it more narrowly, do it,
but fairly quickly.
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. My responsibility is for research
development and acquisition of chemical and biological
defensive equipment.
The responsibility for training, etc., is that of the
services in accordance with their Title X responsibilities.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Allen seemed to be passing the ball back to
you as it related to inventory. If I heard him properly in his
statement, I think he was saying that was your responsibility.
Is inventory your responsibility?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. No, sir, I do not consider it my
responsibility.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Allen, did I hear you incorrectly.
Mr. Allen. I didn't intend to imply that Ms. Winegar was
responsible for inventory. What DLA is responsible for is
procurement and distribution of these items of supply; and part
of that procurement is the quality control and where we have--
--
Mr. Shays. Let me just clarify. Distribution means you put
is it somewhere, you give it--in other words, you send it
somewhere?
Mr. Allen. There are two levels of distribution sir. One
level of distribution is in the DLA warehouses where we
maintain equipment on behalf of the military services, in the
DOD supply depos, if you will.
Mr. Shays. DOD?
Mr. Allen. Yes.
Mr. Shays. And that's your responsibility?
Mr. Allen. That is our responsibility. There are--there
is--some portion of this equipment is sent to the deploying
services, so that they can train with it.
Mr. Shays. I hear you.
Mr. Allen. They can deploy with it, etc. And that portion
of the supplies is the responsibility of the military services.
Mr. Shays. So it your statement that none of the 250,000
potential defective gear is in any of your warehouses?
Mr. Allen. That's correct.
Mr. Shays. So now what you're basically saying to us is
that you've sent it out into the field. Is it your
responsibility to try to locate it?
Mr. Allen. We, in conjunction with the program manager,
have attempted to locate all----
Mr. Shays. That's not what I asked. I didn't ask that what
you've attempted to. I just want someone to take ownership.
You know, in my office, if two people take ownership, no
one has ownership. I always make sure that someone has
ownership.
I found your statement in the beginning and your answers to
the first questions alarming, and I wanted to jump in; and now
I've waited my chance. I felt you were very cavalier in your
answers, and now I'm trying to understand why it seems so
cavalier.
I'll also say something to you. I come with a bias. I come
with a bias that says, you know--I would say to my dad, you
know, I just didn't remember, you know; and he would tell me,
remember to be home at a certain time. He said, Well, I'll give
you a little incentive; if you don't get home by 10 tomorrow,
you can't go out of this house for a month.
Now, you know what? That was an incentive. I didn't say I
couldn't remember the next time. I made sure I remembered.
I'm trying to figure out who's responsible and who can
provide the incentive. For instance, this may seem extreme, but
if I happen to feel, and others happen to feel, that defective
suits are potentially endangering our troops; and we then
spread the word out to the field, and the field ignores us,
what happens if you said, You'll be court-martialed if you
ignore it? Would the field ignore you then? No.
I mean, that's pretty extreme, but we were court-martialing
people because they didn't want to take anthrax even though
they felt it would potentially harm them. So we were willing to
be pretty strong when we wanted to be. So we had this
incentive, this system of trying to provide rewards.
I guess what I'm having a hard time understanding is, if
you have dangerous equipment out there, you want to know where
it is and you want it out of there. Now--so I want to know, do
you take ownership of the responsibility to make sure we can
get this defective equipment?
Mr. Allen. Sir, before I answer that I have to apologize if
I gave you the impression that I was being cavalier. That was
absolutely not my intent. I take this very seriously.
I would tell you that 34 years ago, I went in the service,
and the chemical suits we wore were ponchos--not very
protective. On top of that, though, I would tell you that DLA
is not responsible for equipment that is owned by the military
services. And once we give equipment to the military services
and they use it for training or they use it for deployment----
Mr. Shays. Who is not responsible, again?
Mr. Allen. Defense Logistics Agency is not responsible for
military equipment that is owned by the military services.
Mr. Shays. OK. So tell me who is.
Mr. Allen. The military services are responsible for
equipment they purchase to use to execute their mission, as
part of their Title X responsibilities.
Mr. Shays. So I'm going to know that, by the book, that's
true and I accept that. But the bottom line is, you want to
make sure they get good equipment, correct?
Mr. Allen. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. So you, or partly you, your agency, were partly
responsible for giving them defective equipment?
Mr. Allen. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. So there's got to be some kind of responsibility
that, my God, we gave----
Mr. Allen. Yes, sir, there is.
Mr. Shays. So I'm going to accept the fact that while
technically you don't have responsibility, you have to feel
that you have some obligation here to try to take care of this
problem.
Mr. Allen. That's correct, sir.
Mr. Shays. OK.
What I'm trying to then understand is, did your answer in
the beginning just stem from the frustrations of not feeling as
a civilian that you're getting the respect from the military
folk that you need in order to have them pay attention to these
notices?
Mr. Allen. No, sir. Again, I obviously conveyed an
impression to you that was not intended on my part and
apologize for that. My answer in the beginning was an attempt
to explain that what we are responsible for is the procurement
and distribution of these items of supply, and that where we do
store it on behalf of the military services----
Mr. Shays. Let me just say I will qualify it and see if you
agree.
Your responsibility is to make sure that they get equipment
that is supposed to do the job as requested by the military, as
designed by the military, and as created by the manufacturer;
and that is your obligation. In other words, not just to get
them equipment, but to give them equipment that works, correct?
Mr. Allen. Yes, sir that is our job.
Mr. Shays. In this case, the system failed.
Mr. Allen. With Isratex, that's correct.
Mr. Shays. It failed. It totally failed. And we had 800,000
suits and we'd identified, you know, 550,000. We have 250,000
to go. Now, admittedly they are the battle dress overgarment,
and I'll get into the question of what equipment we send into
the Middle East, but I just want to know, isn't it fair for me
to accept that if you are responsible for making sure that good
equipment, and in the end, maybe your predecessor, or two
predecessors ago, didn't make sure that happened, for whatever
reason, that you have an obligation to do everything to make
sure that you relocate that bad equipment and get it out of the
system?
Mr. Allen. That is our obligation, and I think we have gone
through extraordinary steps to try to meet that obligation on
repeated instances, sir, to include last month, because the
fund site that was used to provide the transportation accounts
to return any deficient equipment, they might have found had
expired. We, on our own, went out again to renew that fund site
to again take in another opportunity to remind them to check
their equipment and make sure it was not part of the Isratex
equipment, and return it to us if it was so done, and return it
to us at no cost to them--in fact for replacement. We've done
as much as we could do to incentivize----
Mr. Shays. Let me ask this: In cases like the no-cost--I
think that's good, everyone is looking at their bottom line,
but in my mind would be, my God, this is bad equipment. It
could endanger our troops. If I was in the military, I would
think you wouldn't need any incentive. You just need the
command to make sure that people down a little further know.
Mr. Allen, I'd be happy to have you ask questions if you
would like and take my time. I don't want you to feel you have
to leave.
Mr. Allen of Maine. I do have to leave, but I don't mind.
I've given a question to Jan Schakowsky. She can handle it for
me.
Mr. Shays. With regard to the joint list, we have the
battle dress overgarment and in there are potentially zero to
250--obviously, it's going to be less than 250,000, but it
could be 100,000 it could be 50,000, it could be 20,000.
We want to make sure--even if it's 2,000, we want to make
sure it's zero, because we don't want 2,000 going into the
Middle East. My understanding is that the Joint Service
Lightweight Integrated Service Technology suits that we have,
we wanted 4 million, and we've got how many now.
Mr. Allen. We have 150--I'm sorry 1,000,500 suits in our
possession, another 800,000 suits on order, currently being
manufactured.
Mr. Shays. I would think that someone would want to
ascertain and say, with all commitment--and I would like to
think that somebody would have been given the permission to say
what would have to be the truth--whatever these 1,500 really
high technology suits that other countries want to use,
wherever they are in the field, we would collect them and make
sure that they will be the only ones used in the Middle East. I
would like to think that.
Would that be illogical for me to make an assumption that
should happen?
Ms. Johnson-Winegar. No, sir. I think that's a perfectly
valid assumption, as we plan for these times of contingencies,
that we can readjust the inventory, if you will, and move
existing suits from units that won't need them to those that
will.
Mr. Shays. One of the things that I think this committee
should do is, we should contact the Department of Defense and
have an ironclad agreement that none of the battle dress
overgarments will be used, and any that are used we are certain
are not part of the 250,000 defective equipment.
I would think that would be like a no-brainer for us.
And, Mr. Allen, do you want to say something?
Mr. Allen. No, I certainly understand that perspective. I
would agree with that perspective.
Mr. Shays. One last question: Do we have the capability, if
we need--we had 700,000 troops; I don't think we would have
that many in Iraq this time, if in fact we do go in, but do we
have the capability to bring together 500,000 of these suits?
Mr. Allen. One of the improvements we have made since our
last hearing on this subject is, absolutely we have the
capability to identify the suits. In fact, within the DLA
warehouses we have more than 500,000 of these suits we're
storing on behalf of the services, so we could put our hands on
those specific suits and make sure those were the ones that
were issued. We have established some positive controls since
the Isratexes were sent to the field.
Mr. Shays. I would like to think that you would take
ownership of the fact that you have these in your possession
and you would want to make sure that these are the only suits
that get out, unless I don't know something and the battle
dress overgarment has a function that the JSLIST doesn't that
is needed. But if the Joint List suit is going to do the job, I
would think that's the only suit that would be there.
Mr. Allen. The JSLIST suit would be the one of choice in
all likelihood, and that would be the one we would issue,
unless there were specifically instructed to do otherwise, sir.
Mr. Shays. Thank you for your patience, Ms. Schakowsky. You
could have 10 minutes' time, whatever.
Mr. Schakowsky. Thank you. I want to thank the chairman for
so relentlessly pursuing this issue, which has become
heightened in its importance given the fact that we actually
may be in a state of war, though I hope that can be avoided.
I have been, not only as a member of this committee,
participating in hearings like this, but also as the ranking
Democrat on the Government Efficiency Subcommittee. I want to
quote you something that was said by a licensed practical nurse
that's been in Afghanistan. This was a quote from a Los Angeles
Times article. He says if Hussein used chemical or biological
weapons, ``he'd be an idiot,'' said Staff Sergeant John Hughes,
a 38-year-old licensed practical nurse, who returned from a 7-
month stint in Afghanistan in mid-July. ``I don't think it
would be a problem. It's something that the infantry trains on
all the time.''
It is with that sort of confidence that our enlisted men
and women have that they would be going into harm's way in
danger of biological and chemical weapons. But I want to tell
you, after sitting in these hearings, both this subcommittee
and my subcommittee, and hearing essentially the Keystone Cops
way that we've been handling inventory and these defective
suits, I would hate for our men and women in the armed services
to know about that, because this would damage their attitude.
And I want to talk to you about a couple of things that I
still have been hearing that don't--that still don't give me
confidence. You said, Mr. Allen, that we know the contract and
lot numbers and so we can find these suits. And yet the GAO
stated that the DOD could not easily identify, track and locate
defective suits because inventory records do not always include
contract and lot numbers.
Are they mistaken or are you?
Mr. Allen. What the GAO and the IG correctly identified is
that, at the unit level, there is not a consistent inventory
management system. And one of the IG's findings and
recommendations to this panel and the DOD was to establish an
inventory management system at the unit level that included all
that information.
At the wholesale level we do have that information, so we
are able to maintain those controls at that level.
At the unit level what they're talking about oftentimes is
that many posts, camps and stations that are training in a
regular environment, in some cases they're talking about gear-
gets on a ship at sea as people deploy with gear, because they
may need it while they're deployed. And it's at that level
where the lack of an inventory management system is.
Mr. Schakowsky. Not only an inventory management system,
but according to the Inspector General, not all units received
the information from their higher headquarters about the suits.
And as recently as April 2002, the IG continued to identify
units that had not segregated those defective BDOs in their
inventories; is that so?
Mr. Allen. I can't question the IG's findings. We were not
given that report until yesterday afternoon. I'd like to have
the specifics of that, so that we could followup with that to
determine if something happened in our procedures and our
processes; we can make the corrections for the future. I was
not aware of that until yesterday afternoon.
Ms. Schakowsky. But a few minutes ago you asserted that we
did. I think that it is at least important that we acknowledge
the problem fully in order to be able to correct it.
Just a few minutes ago you asserted that, in fact, all of
these units had been informed and that we are going to be able
to find these suits. So, please, I hope you will be making sure
that every single unit is aware of them.
The issue of inventory control, even on the new suits. We
had testimony, I think it was in the Government Efficiency
Subcommittee, that inventory control ranged from having
information on a computer system to having it on erase boards.
And you know how long-lasting that is. So the question of even
being able to identify where the 1.2 million or however many
working suits that we have seems to be a problem, and yet you
seem very confident that we could call up the necessary number
of suits, that we know where they are,and I don't feel as
confident.
You know, if we are talking about erase boards, who knows
where they could be? And you are talking about on ship. What
are we doing to centralize and reform this inventory control
system so that we really do know where they are?
Mr. Shays. Before the gentleman answers, I just want to,
for the record, point out that was our hearing on inventory
control in June; and we used, as an example, the suits. We used
as an example the very issue we are doing right now.
So it is kind of like we are doing the reverse. First, we
did inventory and then talked about the suits. Now we are
talking about the suits and talking about inventory.
Ms. Schakowsky. I think Government Efficiency, though, also
looked at inventory control, not just regarding the defective
suits but now the new suits, knowing where they are.
Mr. Shays. Right. And the hearing was on the pathetic
nature of how we keep inventory on a whole host of issues, not
just the suits.
Ms. Schakowsky. Right. So what are we doing to make sure
that we know where the good ones are?
Mr. Allen. Based on the last hearing a couple of years ago,
the program manager and the military services took
responsibility to--and in part being driven by the committee
here--to establish and report annually on the inventory status
of those suits. That is a manual process at some part at this
point. In some part, it is automated. I must make a distinction
between the wholesale level inventory management and the
visibility and the automation level that we have at the DLA and
at the Army level, from the inventory management capability at
the unit level.
Ms. Schakowsky. But isn't that what we care about? Isn't it
at the unit level that we fight a war?
Mr. Allen. We keep suits and can supply suits at both
levels. So, yes, we care about unit level. But we also care
about at the--the wholesale level. And we do have much better
capability, which we are expanding.
I believe during the June hearing that the program manager,
Mr. Bryce, outlined a test program he was going to institute to
get visibility of suits as they pass to an operating level unit
within the Marines Corps.
He also testified, and it was part of my written record,
that we are establishing an enterprise resource planning system
which we will make available to link to all of the services'
inventory records as a way to get a handle on the inventory
from top to bottom. We are not there yet.
Ms. Schakowsky. So we are doing annual testing?
Mr. Allen. We are doing annual reporting, some portion of
which is manual.
Ms. Schakowsky. Does this kind of system apply to other
inventory, or now you are just responding to the committee's--
both subcommittees' focus on suits?
Mr. Allen. No. This kind of system would apply to all
inventories, eventually. But one of the issues is that suits
are probably--chemical protective gear is more important
perhaps at this point than some other equipment which might not
be so life protecting.
Ms. Schakowsky. Well, let me ask you about the extent to
which they are life protecting. I understand that the Navy
SEALs are concerned because the suits don't work if there is
saltwater on them. Is that the case?
Mr. Allen. One of the operating requirements for these
suits, the JSLIST suit, was to operate in a salt mist
environment. If you immerse it in saltwater, no, it does not
protect if there is immersion. But it does protect in a normal
operating environment at sea where it is raining or it is
misting.
Ms. Schakowsky. Are you concerned that in the Gulf Region
that this might put some of our people at least in harm's way
if it is not--if saltwater itself--not mist, but water--would
make the suits ineffective?
Mr. Allen. I don't believe the JSLIST suits would ever be
used by SEALs in their saltwater mission environment. The
SEALs--when you are referring to the SEALs, they are operating
underwater; and the JSLIST suits were not intended for use
underwater.
Ms. Schakowsky. So you are not concerned that the saltwater
issue is a problem?
Mr. Allen. The services did not make that a requirement
for--one of the technical requirements for the suit.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK.
Mr. Allen. They built the requirement based upon the threat
that they expected to face.
Mr. Shays. Really, General Goldfein, this is your--you
basically try to determine what you need; and, General Bond,
you try to determine how you make it. So couldn't both of you
also answer that question?
Ms. Schakowsky. That would be helpful.
General Bond. Well, it would be interesting to find out
what the Navy and the special operation forces had requested to
support the Seal's mission in this endeavor. The JSLIST suits
were never intended for this. They may have a special purpose
one, or this may be a new evolving requirement for which we are
now going to get a requirement. We will supersede through--
while we wait it through the formal process, to now find a way
to satisfy this one.
There are mechanisms, I think, that science and
technology--that we have that would allow us to have a suit
that could withstand this.
Mr. Parker. There is a specific undergarment which is
designed for the special operating forces, including the SEALs,
which has a rather extraordinary range of applications and
extremely severe operating environments, which would be
suitable for the, you know, the use that I think you are
intimating in your questioning. That is available to the SEALs.
The JSLIST was never intended for that type of an operating
environment.
Ms. Schakowsky. Do you all feel confident that we know
where enough of the non-defective suits are right now so that
they can be immediately put to use in a combat situation in
Iraq?
Mr. Allen. Unequivocally, yes.
Ms. Schakowsky. You are certain that none of the defective
suits would end up being used in that way?
Mr. Allen. When you ask me if I am certain, I cannot be
unequivocal about that. I have a high degree of confidence that
there would be no defective suits utilized for a number of
reasons, partly because of what we have been through to
identify and cull out the defective suits;partly because of
what the chairman mentioned, which would be the CINCs would
want to use the new suits. And we know we can identify those
suits.
So, unequivocally, we could equip the force that is
envisioned today with good suits and knowing, with virtual
assurety, that they are all good suits.
Ms. Schakowsky. I just have to say that I think, addressing
some of these incredible inefficiencies at this late date,
while it is important that we do it, would really astound most
Americans, I think, the fact that we don't have a better handle
on something as basic as these protective suits.
But I am happy to hear that even though it is so late that
we are trying to get a handle on it and that at the next
hearing we will have a full report about where these 250,000
defective suits are and that we have an inventory system
capable of tracking all of these lifesaving, at the very least,
equipment that our young men and women need.
Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
I ask just the indulgence of the committee to ask two
questions that we have. We prepared questions beforehand, and
usually they are covered by different members, but these two
questions haven't been to our satisfaction. We want them on the
record, so whether I am chairman a year from now or someone
else, another party or whatever, we have this on the record so
we can have a benchmark. I think really, General Goldfein, it
may be in your area.
I would ask, how will the establishment of the Joint
Program Executive Office improve the CB defense requirement
process?
General Goldfein. That is--the way you stated the question,
Mr. Chairman, is a bit of a mixture in sort of the way we
describe----
Mr. Shays. OK. I am going to ask you another question, and
you decide which one you want to answer first and whether you
want to.
How will the establishment of a Joint Program Executive
Office improve the CB material acquisition process?
General Goldfein. Yes, sir. I am going to defer to General
Bond on the Joint Program Executive, because that would be his
business. I would, however, if I can help, I will answer on the
requirements side. I will make a couple of comments.
First of all, having a counterpart, a Joint Program
Executive to match with me as a Director for Joint Requirements
is a good thing. We should work--we should be joined at the
hip. We should work hand in hand. In other words, I should do
the work to establish the requirement. For example, earlier the
comment was made about SEAL equipment. It there was a need, I
should have a good system that will bring that need my
attention.
I would then hand that responsibility to the Program
Executive and ask that he go forward and, for example, purchase
an item. And I am making this overly simple.
Mr. Shays. Sure. I understand.
General Goldfein. We should work closely hand in hand. I
should be aware whether or not he accomplished that task,
because then I know whether that requirement has been met.
So I guess my answer to your question would be that the
Joint Program Executive, from my perspective, is the
requirements person, is an important office, an important
advantage, and the two of us should work--and we intend to--
hand in hand.
I would prefer to defer to General Bond with regard to the
specifics of that office.
Mr. Shays. OK.
General Bond. Mr. Chairman, in my prior job for the last 2
years I was on the requirements and was the counterpart for the
Army that worked up through the JROC process to validate
requirements.
It was not with malice aforethought that the chief or the
Secretary moved me to this position now where I now take the
requirements and now have responsibility for delivering actual
performance.
In that venue, the issue that General Goldfein Talks about
is really clear, because we need to work very closely. He
identifies requirements. I need then to tell him what really
technology, along with Mr. Parker, is really achievable within
the timeframes that they want. We don't want to set the bar too
high, for which then our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen
are waiting and waiting for that out there.
But at the same time, he wants to challenge us to make sure
that we get the best possible capability out there for
soldiers. We need to do that in a joined-at-the-hip manner, in
which we make sure that we get the best capability out there.
So we are going to work this together and will continue to do
that in the future.
Mr. Shays. And it is not that way right now?
General Goldfein. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. That is
why the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Under Secretary
for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics collectively arrived
at a position that said we need to come up to a better way,
which is what generated this office I indicated to you earlier
which we have just started.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. That is very helpful information.
Is there anything in this public part of this hearing that
you want to put on the record?
Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Chairman, I didn't do justice to Mr.
Allen's questions. Could I ask them briefly?
Mr. Shays. Absolutely.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
It is my understanding that after 5 years--I think this is
an old rule not a new rule--suits are supposed to be tested for
defects annually; is that correct?
Mr. Allen. I think what you are referring to is the shelf-
life extension program. We have a joint shelf-life extension
program on all chemical equipment, and we set the timing on
each piece of equipment differently.
Ms. Schakowsky. Have you been doing that annual----
Mr. Allen. For suits at--the 5th year we test it for shelf-
life extension, and we test it again at----
Ms. Schakowsky. Have you been doing the 5 year?
Mr. Allen. Yes. I think it is 5, 9, 12 and 14 year. We
extend it up to 14 years if it passes the tests.
Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Allen's question was, does the Pentagon
have the paperwork demonstrating that it has conducted annual
testing on all suits that have extended past their recommended
shelf life?
Mr. Allen. Yes, we do. Especially since 2 years ago. We
really--we really tightened up that process as a result of some
problems that we experienced 2 years ago and partly as a result
of this committee's hearing then.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. I just want to make sure, since we
are trying to be precise here. So we tightened up a system
where we didn't have it. So there may have been some in the
past where we weren't doing it. And your response to the
question for Mr. Schakowsky, on behalf of Representative Allen,
is that from this--from a period of 2 years ago on, you have
started this paperwork.
Mr. Allen. No, I wasn't clear. We also did the testing. I
don't know that the documentation was as clean and as proper as
it is now.
And one of the reasons we did that, sir, is so that we
could provide some assurance that there would be no defective
suits going to any soldiers. And we--we do that according to
all equipment at this point.
Mr. Shays. OK. Let me ask, is there anything else that
anyone wants to put on the record in this open hearing?
We are going to adjourn. We are going to start sharp at 25
after. It gives about 13 minutes if you want to quickly--on the
basement level there is--I think you can get something to eat,
if you wanted to just get something to drink, and we will
resume the hearing at the other site behind closed doors that--
--
You all are sworn in. It is just a continuation;and,
frankly, we may just put all of you together so we can have an
interactive dialog.
But it will be by 25 after at the next site.
This hearing is adjourned until 2:25.
[Whereupon, at 2:10 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to
reconvene in closed session.]
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