NCJ Number
191176
Date Published
2001
Length
28 pages
Annotation
The purpose of this document is to determine whether the Defense Department's process for assessing the risk to military operations on the basis of wartime equipment requirements is reliable and how the Department's inventory management of chemical and biological protective gear has affected the risk level.
Abstract
The Defense Department (DOD) believes it is increasingly likely that an enemy will use biological and chemical weapons against U.S. forces to degrade superior conventional forces. To reduce the effects of such an attack, DOD has determined the quantity of chemical and biological protective suits that are needed to protect troops. The National Defense Authorization Act for 1994 required the Secretary of Defense to conduct a DOD-wide program for chemical and biological warfare defense and to exercise program oversight. DOD's assessment process is unreliable for determining the risk to military operations. In its 2000 report to Congress, DOD inaccurately reported the risk was "low" when it should have been considered "high." The report was inaccurate because it included erroneous inventory data and wartime requirements. The process for determining risk is flawed because: (1) DOD determines requirements by individual pieces of protective equipment rather than by the number of complete ensembles that can be provided to troops; and (2) the process combines individual service requirements and reported inventory data into general categories, masking specific critical shortages affecting individual service readiness. Inadequate management of inventory is an additional risk factor because readiness can be compromised by DOD's inventory-management practices, which prevent an accurate accounting of the availability or adequacy of its protective equipment. DOD cannot monitor the status of the entire inventory of protective equipment because the services and the Defense Logistics Agency use at least nine different systems of inventory management, and the systems' records contain data that cannot be easily linked. Also, DOD cannot determine whether all of its older suits would adequately protect troops because some of the systems' records omit essential data on suit expiration. DOD cannot identify, track, and locate defective suits because inventory records do not always include contract and lot number. Finally, DOD miscalculated the requirements for suits and the number available. The Department counted new suits as on hand before they had been delivered and consequently overstated the actual inventory. GAO recommended the Department issue guidance requiring each service to evaluate its risk on the basis of current inventory numbers of complete ensembles against wartime requirements; implement a fully integrated inventory management system to manage chemical and biological defense equipment and use it to prepare the required annual report to Congress and the annual Logistics Support Plan on chemical and biological defense; establish data fields in the inventory management system to show the contract, lot number, and expiration date of shelf-life items; and stop counting equipment as on hand before delivery from the contractor. Tables, appendices