EXCLUSIVE: Agency to probe body armor delays

Body-armor manufacturers are raising concerns that a Pentagon decision to move armor testing from private labs to an Army research center will increase costs and slow the availability of lifesaving equipment as thousands of additional U.S. troops head to Afghanistan.

Those concerns have prompted the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, to open an inquiry, The Washington Times has learned.

Army Secretary Pete Geren decided in February to strip private contractors of responsibility for quality and safety testing after a Pentagon inspector general report criticized Army quality-control procedures.

As a result, Mr. Geren moved testing to Aberdeen Test Center in Maryland, prompting a rare public controversy within a community of private contractors that prides itself on keeping secret the ways in which the United States protects its troops.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Army and Marine Corps have faced periodic criticism over their purchases of body armor.

The controversy ranged from concerns over supplies of vests and armor inserts designed to stop bullets to whether both services were purchasing the best equipment, especially as technology improved.

So far, the Army is the only branch of the military that is testing body armor at the Aberdeen facility, which is not certified by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), an evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Army on Tuesday acknowledged that the GAO has launched an inquiry, but said it is satisfied with the pace, quality and cost of testing at Aberdeen.

U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) spokesman Tom Rheinlander said in response to questions submitted by The Times that it is “meeting or exceeding” its deadlines, but that it retains the option to involve “partners in private industry to augment ATEC capabilities.”

It also said the quality of its tests is superior to those performed in the past by private labs.

“ATEC currently is testing to a much more rigorous set of protocols and is executing additional test events the commercial labs did not perform,” Mr. Rheinlander said in an e-mail.

Several defense contractors who make body armor and other protective gear for the military said, however, that they are already seeing spikes in the price they pay for the mandatory testing and that the pace of testing has slowed so much that gear is beginning to stack up on their shelves. Some of the manufacturers had working relationships with test facilities no longer used by the Army

“I think it could lead to a serious problem,” said Dave Reed, president of North American operations with Ceradyne Inc., which develops, manufactures and markets advanced technical ceramic products for the Defense Department and other entities. “I’ve recommended to the Army that they should go outside of Aberdeen and back to the private sector because of the delays. I haven’t seen them do that yet.”

Mr. Reed said lot testing of ceramic plates “used to take only a day at private certified facilities, and can now take more than five days at Aberdeen.”

Ceradyne was awarded an $8.1 million contract in April for its Small Arms Protective Inserts (SAPI) from the U.S. Army. The company has also received a $77 million order for newer body armor plates intended to stop armor-piercing rounds, known as XSAPI.

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