Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee

on Military Readiness, Committee on

Armed Services, House of

Representatives

United States General Accounting Office

GAO

September 2001 CHEMICAL AND

BIOLOGICAL

DEFENSE

Improved Risk

Assessment and

Inventory

Management Are

Needed

GAO-01-667
Page i GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2

Background 4

DOD’s Assessment Process Is Unreliable for Determining Risk to

Military Operations 5

Erroneous Suit Inventory and Requirements Data Compromise

DOD’s Risk Analysis 6

Inadequate Inventory Management Is an Additional Risk Factor 9

Conclusion 13

Recommendations 14

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 14

Scope and Methodology 15

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 16

Appendix II Comments From the Department of Defense 18

Appendix III GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 22

Related Products 23

Tables

Table 1: DOD’s Criteria to Assess Risk 6

Table 2: Risk Based on Protective Items Available in Wartime 7

Table 3: Risk Based on New Requirements and Protective Items

Available in Wartime 7

Table 4: Servicemembers With Required Protective Ensembles 8

Contents
Page ii GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

Figures

Figure 1: Components of the Protective Ensemble 4

Figure 2: Boxes of Defective Suits at the Defense Logistics Agency

Depot in Albany, GA 12

Abbreviations

DOD Department of Defense

JSLIST Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology
Page 1 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

September 28, 2001

The Honorable Joel Hefley

Chairman, Subcommittee on Military Readiness

Committee on Armed Services

House of Representatives

Dear Mr. Chairman:

The Department of Defense (DOD) believes it is increasingly likely that an

adversary will use chemical or biological weapons against U.S. forces to

degrade superior U.S. conventional warfare capabilities, placing

servicemembers’ lives and effective military operations at risk. To reduce

the effects of such an attack on military personnel, DOD has determined

the quantity of chemical and biological protective suits, masks, breathing

filters, gloves, boots, and hoods (together known as protective

ensembles1

) that are needed on the basis of projected wartime

requirements.

In response to a request from the former Chairman of your Subcommittee,

we reviewed U.S. forces’ readiness in terms of the protective equipment

needed for operations in a chemically or biologically contaminated

environment. We determined (1) whether DOD’s process for assessing the

risk to military operations on the basis of wartime equipment requirements

is reliable and (2) how DOD’s inventory management of chemical and

biological protective gear has affected the risk level. Also, as requested by

the former Chairman, we will soon issue two additional reports on the

readiness of military medical support in Korea and of the Military Sealift

Command to operate in a contaminated environment.

Prior to 1994, each service had its own chemical and biological defense

program and developed and procured individual protection equipment that

was not always interoperable. The National Defense Authorization Act for

Fiscal Year 1994 (Pub. L. 103-160),2

 however, required the Secretary of

Defense to conduct a DOD-wide program for chemical and biological

 1

 DOD’s requirements also specify equipment to detect the presence of chemical or

biological agents, to decontaminate equipment, and to provide protection for

servicemembers in groups.

2

 50 U.S.C. §§ 1522 and 1523.

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548
Page 2 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

warfare defense, to exercise program oversight, and to report annually to

the Congress on the program’s status. The Secretary assigned

responsibility for the program to the Under Secretary of Defense for

Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. Subsequently, the Joint Nuclear,

Biological, and Chemical Defense Board, which comprises the services’

representatives, was created to address related policy, joint requirements,

funding issues, and plans for modernization and logistics.

To assist in program oversight, the Joint Board publishes the Joint Service

Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Logistics Support Plan:

Readiness and Sustainment Status, which provides an assessment of the

overall logistics readiness of the armed forces to survive and sustain

combat operations in a contaminated environment. Also, DOD’s Chemical

and Biological Defense: Annual Report to Congress, which is partially

derived from information provided by the services and the Defense

Logistics Agency, provides an assessment of the overall readiness of the

armed forces to fight in a chemically or biologically contaminated

environment.

DOD’s assessment process is unreliable for determining the risk to military

operations; as a result, in its 2000 report to the Congress, the Department

inaccurately reported the risk in most cases as “low.” The report is

inaccurate because it includes erroneous inventory data and wartime

requirements. More important, the process for determining risk is

fundamentally flawed because (1) the Department determines

requirements by individual pieces of protective equipment rather than by

the number of complete ensembles that can be provided to deploying

servicemembers, and (2) the risk-determining process combines individual

service requirements and reported inventory data into general categories,

masking specific critical shortages affecting individual service readiness.

Had the Department assessed the risk on the basis of the number of

complete ensembles it had available, by service, the risk would rise to

“high” in all cases.

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. These practices can also undermine efforts to

mitigate the risk. Moreover, these practices indicate problems in the

Results in Brief
Page 3 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

Department’s management of inventory that we have noted in a previous

report.3

 The practices that we identified in the current report regarding

inventories of chemical and biological equipment contribute to the

development of erroneous inventory data that in turn affect the accuracy

of the risk assessment. First, 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 with differing data fields to manage suit inventories, and the

systems’ records contain data that cannot be easily linked. Second, DOD

cannot determine whether all of its older suits would adequately protect

servicemembers because some of the systems’ records omit essential data

on suit expiration. Third, DOD cannot easily identify, track, and locate

defective suits because inventory records do not always include contract

and lot numbers. Finally, DOD has miscalculated the requirements for

suits and the number available; for example, the Department counted new

suits as on hand before they had been delivered and consequently

overstated the actual inventory.

We are making recommendations to assist DOD in better assessing risk

and improving oversight of the inventory of chemical protective

equipment.

 3

Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of Defense (GAO-01-244,

Jan. 2001).
Page 4 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

DOD may be unable to prevent an attack using chemical or biological

weapons. Therefore, DOD has determined that servicemembers must be

protected to survive and conduct effective military operations.

Consequently, DOD supplies servicemembers with a protective ensemble

consisting of a suit, mask with breathing filter, rubber boots, butyl gloves,

and hoods as required. Figure 1 displays the components that comprise a

protective ensemble.

Figure 1: Components of the Protective Ensemble

Note: The new JSLIST suit has an attached hood so a separate hood would no longer be necessary.

Source: The Army’s Soldier Biological and Chemical Command.

Background
Page 5 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

During Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, DOD noted that most of this

equipment (1) could cause unacceptable heat stress to the wearer,

(2) could limit freedom of movement and impair job performance, (3) is

bulky, and (4) is not fully interoperable across the services. Furthermore,

most of the existing suits (1) are no longer manufactured, (2) can be used

for up to 14 years from the date of manufacture, and (3) will expire by

2007. To address these issues, DOD developed new, lightweight individual

protective equipment such as the Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit

Technology (JSLIST) trousers and coat to replace the current protective

suits. DOD began procuring the JSLIST suits in 1997. An improved

multipurpose overboot is in procurement and new protective gloves are

under development to improve manual dexterity and/or reduce heat stress

on the wearer. Similarly, since the existing masks may cause some

breathing difficulty, DOD is developing a new mask but does not expect to

begin procurement until fiscal year 2006.

During fiscal years 2002 through 2007, DOD plans to spend about $5.7

billion on planning for chemical and biological defense, acquisition of

defense equipment, facilities construction, and research and development.

In 1999, we recommended that DOD develop a performance plan guided

by outcome-oriented management principles embodied in the Government

Performance and Results Act of 1993 (Pub. L. 103-62).4

 DOD created a

plan; however, performance goals and measures were being developed at

the time of our review.

DOD’s assessment process for determining the risk to military operations

is unreliable, and, as a result, the Department’s current determination that

the risk is generally low is inaccurate. Although the Department uses the

Chemical and Biological Defense Program Annual Report to Congress to

indicate its readiness for operations in a chemically and biologically

contaminated environment, the 2000 report contains erroneous inventory

data and understates equipment requirements. More important, the

methodology for assessing the risk is flawed because it is not based on the

number of complete ensembles needed and it obscures military service

readiness by combining service data and reporting the results jointly.

 4 Chemical and Biological Defense: Program Planning and Evaluation Should Follow

Results Act Framework (GAO/NSIAD-99-159, Aug. 1999).

DOD’s Assessment

Process Is Unreliable

for Determining Risk

to Military Operations
Page 6 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

DOD’s criteria for assessing the risk of wartime shortages is to determine

the numbers of protective suits, masks, breathing filters, gloves, boots, and

hoods it has on hand, compare them against the requirements for those

individual items, and then assign risk. (See table 1)

Table 1: DOD’s Criteria to Assess Risk

Risk level Wartime requirements on hand (percent)

Low At least 85

Moderate From 70 to 84

High Less than 70

Source: Chemical and Biological Defense Program: Annual Report to Congress, March 2000.

In the draft fiscal year 2001 annual report to Congress provided to us in

June 2001, DOD reported that it was generally at low risk for suits.5

However, the risk assessment process was flawed in part because DOD

used erroneous data on protective suits. For example

• DOD made computational errors in comparing the older suits and JSLIST

suits against a combined total suit requirement,

• the Air Force overreported its suit requirement by 801,167 suits,

• DOD reported it had 1,229,935 JSLIST suits on hand as of September 30,

2000, but overcounted its inventory by 782,232 JSLIST suits,

• the Navy included about 117,000 suits that had passed their expiration

dates and were therefore unusable, and

• the Army underreported its suit stocks by an estimated 231,050 suits.

These errors occurred in large part as the result of problems in DOD’s

systems for managing protective suit inventories.6

 We believe that the

services collectively had no more than 4,348,999 suits of all types on hand

as of September 30, 2000. When we included all the suits for wartime use

and adjusted the numbers to account for the errors and miscounts, the risk

category changed to high for suits, as shown in table 2.

 5

 DOD has already published the same inventory data in its fiscal year 2001 Logistics

Support Plan.

6

 Some of these problems and their causes are discussed later in this report in more detail

in the section on inventory management.

DOD’s Process to Assess

Risk

Erroneous Suit

Inventory and

Requirements Data

Compromise DOD’s

Risk Analysis
Page 7 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

Table 2: Risk Based on Protective Items Available in Wartime

Item Requirement Inventory

Inventory as a share of

requirements (percent) Risk level

Suits 6,346,599 4,348,999 68.5 High

Masks 2,120,823 2,278,322 107.4 Low

Filters 3,479,307 4,762,358 136.9 Low

Gloves 7,720,150 7,424,811 96.2 Low

Boots 5,061,719 3,887,172 76.8 Moderate

Hoods 2,481,051 3,559,906 143.5 Low

Source: Our analysis based on data in DOD’s Logistics Support Plan for fiscal year 2001.

In February 2001, the military services informed the Joint Nuclear,

Biological, and Chemical Defense Board that equipment requirements

were actually much higher than those reported to Congress and included

in the fiscal year 2001 Logistics Support Plan. The board subsequently

accepted the new requirements. Based on these new requirements, the risk

remained high for suits; changed to high for filters, boots, and hoods; and

remained low for gloves and masks, as shown by comparing the risk level

columns in tables 2 and 3.

Table 3: Risk Based on New Requirements and Protective Items Available in

Wartime

Item New requirements Inventory

Inventory as a share of

requirements (percent) Risk level

Suits 6,354,678 4,348,999 68.4 High

Masks 1,655,964 2,278,322 137.6 Low

Filters 7,223,660 4,762,358 65.9 High

Gloves 7,082,772 7,424,811 104.8 Low

Boots 5,844,656 3,887,172 66.5 High

Hoods 5,521,232 3,559,906 64.5 High

Source: Our analysis based on guidance provided by the services.

DOD has inaccurately assessed the risk to military operations by

determining the number of individual items of equipment it has on hand

and by combining the services’ inventories of individual items. Service

guidance specifies that a total of 1,573,866 active and reserve

servicemembers need protection to meet current operations plan

requirements. DOD provides each deploying servicemember with up to

four ensembles either at deployment or held in war reserve and distributed

Assessing Readiness by

Individual Items and

by Individual Service

Obscures the Risk
Page 8 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

to theater operating forces when needed. The ensembles consist of five

components: (1) four protective suits, (2) between four and eight pairs of

gloves and boots, (3) between four and eight hoods, (4) up to four

breathing filters, and (5) one mask.

Because DOD does not report each service’s readiness based on the

equipment it has on hand, but rather provides a joint assessment, critical

service shortages or opportunities for cross-service assistance tend to be

obscured. In fact, each service reported shortages of one component of

the ensemble. Specifically, the Army reported critical shortages of hoods;

the Air Force reported shortages of gloves; the Navy, shortages of suits;

the Marine Corps, shortages of boots. When we compared the number of

ensembles required by each service’s guidance and applied the DOD risk

criteria, the risk was high for all four services. As a result, DOD cannot

provide all the required ensembles for 682,331 servicemembers scheduled

for wartime deployment, as shown in table 4.

Table 4: Servicemembers With Required Protective Ensembles

Servicemembers

Service

Require

protection Protected

Not

protected

Percent

protected

Risk

level

Army 725,000 467,574 257,426 64.5 High

Navy 354,182 160,668 193,514 45.4 High

Air Force 281,390 168,479 112,911 59.9 High

Marine Corps 213,294 94,814 118,480 44.5 High

Total 1,573,866 891,535 682,331 56.6 High

Source: Our analysis based on data from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.

The risk posed by suit shortages is likely to worsen through 2007 due to

increasing rates of older suits’ expiration and DOD’s plan not to replace all

of them. As of October 1, 2000, DOD reported a shortage of about

1.7 million protective suits; it believes about 3.3 million, or 75 percent, of

the current suit inventory will expire by 2006. JSLIST suits cost about

 $203 each compared to about $80 each for most of the existing suits, and

DOD plans to buy only about 2.8 million JSLIST suits as replacements.

Therefore, the shortage will increase to about 2.2 million suits by 2006.

DOD’s plan to buy fewer new suits is also influenced by expiration of the

suits and budgetary considerations. By replacing suits at a rate slower than

the expiration rate, DOD plans to spread future suit purchases over more

years to avoid a disproportionately large amount of suits expiring in any

one year. This tactic allows greater dispersion of future suit expirations
Page 9 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

and replacement costs but is likely to also increase the short-term risk of

wartime shortages.

DOD is attempting to mitigate some of the shortages. For example, the

Army plans to procure more than 500,000 hoods through fiscal year 2002,

and the Defense Logistics Agency was procuring more of the existing

generation of boots at the time of our report. Some opportunities also

exist for one service to assist another. For example, the Army and Marine

Corps reported significantly more gloves on hand than required and could

transfer some to the Air Force to offset Air Force shortfalls since all the

services use the same gloves. However, other available equipment is not

interoperable and cannot be easily shared. For example, the Navy and

Marine Corps suits are hooded, so they do not have separate hoods and

therefore cannot help alleviate the Army’s shortage. If all goes according

to plan, such interoperability problems should ease after fiscal year 2006,

as all four services begin using the JSLIST suit and new joint masks,

gloves, and boots.

Shortcomings in DOD’s inventory management of chemical and biological

protective equipment adversely affect the Department’s ability to

accurately assess the readiness of the services to meet requirements for

the equipment and mitigate the risk of shortages. DOD’s current inventory

information on chemical and biological equipment is unreliable for making

an accurate risk assessment because DOD and the services cannot easily

link inventory records; lack data on suit expiration dates; cannot easily

identify, track, and locate defective suits; and have miscalculated the

requirements and the number of suits available. These shortcomings are

consistent with long-term problems in DOD’s inventory management that

we have consistently identified since 1990 as a high-risk area due to a

variety of problems, including ineffective and wasteful management

systems and procedures.7

 7 Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of Defense

(GAO-01-244, Jan. 2001).

Inadequate Inventory

Management Is an

Additional Risk

Factor
Page 10 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

The Defense Logistics Agency and the military services store war reserve

inventories of chemical and biological protective suits and other

equipment at a variety of depots, warehouses, and storage facilities and as

noted earlier, use at least nine different inventory systems to manage the

inventories. However, because these systems are not linked, DOD-wide

oversight of the inventories is restricted, and the systems are not used to

directly support the inventory data in the annual report to Congress and

the Logistics Support Plan. Instead, DOD makes an additional effort to

collect data theoretically already in the systems. The data collection

requires units and depots that store the chemical protective equipment to

provide separate data on the equipment annually and relies heavily on

government and contractor personnel to manually compile the data.

Although DOD has at least nine major inventory management systems, it

cannot accurately determine the expiration rate of most of the older suits

used by the Air Force and Army. These account for about 3.3 million of the

current suit inventory and can be used for up to 14 years from the date of

manufacture after which testing has determined that the suits cannot be

used in a contaminated environment. Therefore, knowing the date the

suits were manufactured is critical to estimating the suits’ expiration rate

and the rate at which the suits must be replaced with JSLIST suits.

However, neither DOD nor we can accurately determine the expiration

rate of the old suits because the Defense Logistics Agency, the buyer of the

suits, was unable to locate most of the relevant procurement records.

Moreover, many of the inventory systems cannot be used to locate the

actual expired suits in specific depots because the systems do not record

equipment expiration dates or the manufacturers’ contract or lot numbers.

Two examples or illustrations follow:

• The Army does not record suit expiration information in its primary

inventory management system. To compensate, the Army has assumed an

annual 20-percent expiration rate of its inventory through fiscal year 2005

and expects that all suits will expire by 2005. However, the Army’s

assumption may be inaccurate. Records from a depot in Kentucky indicate

that almost 80,000 suits would be serviceable after 2005 and some as late

as 2008.

• The Navy does not know when its suits will expire because, according to

the Naval Sea Systems Command, the Navy does not require inventory

managers to include the expiration date in inventory records. Nonetheless,

in June 2001, the Navy estimated that of 178,000 suits that it had on hand,

only about 61,000 were actually serviceable because the rest had passed

DOD’s Inventory

Management Systems Are

Not Linked and Cannot Be

Used to Support Risk

Assessments

DOD Does Not Know the

Expiration Rate of Older

Suits
Page 11 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

their expiration date. Our review of 19 Military Sealift Command ships,

which help to sustain deployed U.S. forces, showed that most had severe

suit shortages, due mostly to expirations. We found additional problems in

48 ships in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. These ships currently report that

they are missing one or more components of their ensembles and

consequently cannot provide a complete ensemble for a single

crewmember.

The Air Force and Marine Corps use different inventory management

systems that include contract, lot, and expiration information.

Consequently, these two services can estimate suit expiration rates to

manage their inventories effectively. Nonetheless, neither system is

compatible with the other DOD systems.

The majority of DOD’s and the services’ inventory systems cannot be used

to identify, track, and locate defective suits that may be in current

inventories because contract and lot numbers needed for the purpose are

not always included in the inventory records. In September 1999, officials

from one manufacturer pleaded guilty to selling 778,924 defective suits to

the government. Since these defective suits were distributed to DOD war

reserve and various other inventories, it was imperative that the suits be

found. In May 2000, DOD directed units and depots to locate the defective

suits and issue them for training use only. At the conclusion of our review,

DOD had not found about 250,000 of these suits and did not know whether

they had been used, were still in supply, or were sent for disposal.

Finding the suits was difficult even when the storage depot was known.

For example, the Defense Logistics Agency inventory system does not link

the contract and lot number with the box or pallet number to allow ease in

locating specific items. Consequently, during our review, the Agency

resorted to using 19 reservists for up to 34 days to physically inspect all

pallets and boxes containing about 1.3 million protective suits at its depot

in Albany, GA. The reservists found about 347,000 defective suits. Figure 2

displays some of the boxes of these suits.

DOD Cannot Locate

Defective Suits That May

Be in the Inventory
Page 12 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

Figure 2: Boxes of Defective Suits at the Defense Logistics Agency Depot in

Albany, GA

Source: GAO.

Despite the problem in finding defective suits, the Defense Logistics

Agency’s supply system remained unchanged at the time of our review.

Agency officials acknowledged that they would have to physically

reinspect depot stocks if specific lots of other suits need to be removed

from the inventory before the end of their normal 14-year shelf life.

Several questionable inventory management practices and related actions

have further contributed to the generation of the inaccurate inventory

data, which in turn affects the accuracy of DOD’s risk assessment process.

These include miscalculating suit requirements, failing to count parts of

the suit inventory, and counting suits as part of the inventory long before

they are actually delivered from manufacturers. Some specifics regarding

these counts are as follows:

Other Questionable

Inventory Management

Practices Affect Risk

Assessment Accuracy
Page 13 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

• The Air Force double-counted a portion of its suit requirement by

reporting a requirement for both 801,167 of the older suits and the same

number of replacement JSLIST suits.

• The Army asked units that store suits to report the numbers being stored,

but it did not tell them to include desert pattern suits, which are generally

reserved for use in desert climates. As a result, units did not always

include desert pattern suits in their reported inventories, and the Army

believes it consequently underreported its desert pattern suit inventory by

10 percent of the total, or 231,050 suits.

• In the fiscal year 2001 Logistics Support Plan and draft Annual Report to

Congress, the services reported they had 1,229,935 JSLIST suits on hand

on September 30, 2000, but that included 782,232 suits not yet delivered.

DOD procedures for compiling inventory data for these reports allow

reporting suits expected to be delivered during the year as on hand. In

March 2001, the Marine Corps Systems Command, which manages JSLIST

suit distribution, acknowledged that DOD did not have 1,229,935 JSLIST

suits on hand on September 30, 2000 but might reach that quantity a year

later on September 30, 2001. Moreover, in the same two reports, DOD

projected that it would reach 1.5 million suits by September 30, 2001, again

overestimating JSLIST production.

DOD’s inventory management practices tend to affect the suit inventory

count. This count in turn can significantly affect the results of the risk

assessment process, which is a comparison of requirements against the

inventory on hand.

Because the Department of Defense’s risk assessment process is flawed

and unreliable, DOD inaccurately assessed the risk to servicemembers’

lives and military operations from potential wartime shortages of

protective equipment as low. The Department underestimated the risk by

analyzing requirements based on individual equipment items and not

ensembles. Furthermore, DOD combined this service data into a

consolidated DOD inventory position, which obscured service-specific

shortages. As we discovered, the risk is currently higher than reported by

DOD. Inadequate inventory management has contributed to increased risk.

Because the Department has no integrated inventory system for managing

protective equipment, it has no effective way to (1) gather the data needed

for the annual report to Congress and Logistics Support plan,

(2) determine the expiration dates of protective equipment, and (3) ensure

that its data is correct. To further compound the problem, the services

have counted equipment as on hand before it has been delivered, adding to

the overcounting of equipment that they had in the inventory. Inaccurate

Conclusion
Page 14 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

risk assessment and inadequate inventory management could adversely

affect readiness and prevent informed acquisition decisions that could

undermine risk mitigation.

To improve the Department of Defense’s ability to accurately assess the

level of risk and readiness for operations in a contaminated environment,

we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of

Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics to

• issue and implement 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 (1) the

required annual report to Congress and (2) 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

• cease counting equipment as on hand before delivery from the contractor.

DOD provided written comments on a draft of our report and generally

concurred with our recommendations. DOD partially concurred with our

recommendation to conduct risk assessments on the basis of ensembles

required in wartime and not just components of the ensemble and stated

that the department will issue implementing guidance. DOD concurred

with comment with our recommendations to (1) establish an integrated

inventory management system; (2) include item contract, lot number, and

expiration date information in the new inventory system; and (3) cease

counting equipment as on hand before it is delivered and explained its

plan to implement the recommendations. In addition, DOD provided

technical comments, which we incorporated into our report as

appropriate.

DOD’s comments are printed in their entirety in appendix II along with our

evaluation of their comments.

Recommendations

Agency Comments

and Our Evaluation
Page 15 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

We discuss our scope and methodology in detail in appendix I.

We conducted our review from August 2000 to April 2001 in accordance

with generally accepted government auditing standards.

We will send copies of this report to interested congressional committees;

the Secretaries of Defense, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force; the

Commandant of the Marine Corps; and the Director of the Office of

Management and Budget.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me

at (202) 512-6020. Additional contact and staff acknowledgments are listed

in appendix III.

Sincerely yours,

Raymond J. Decker

Director, Defense Capabilities

and Management

Scope and

Methodology
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 16 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

We determined (1) whether DOD’s process for assessing the risk to

military operations on the basis of wartime equipment requirements is

reliable and (2) how DOD’s inventory management of chemical and

biological protective gear has affected the risk level. We included in our

scope chemical and biological protective suits, masks and breathing

filters, gloves, boots, and hoods.

To understand the process DOD uses to assess the risk, we determined

how DOD performs risk assessments. We examined DOD’s fiscal years

1999, 2000, and 2001 Chemical and Biological Defense: Annual Report to

Congress and Joint Service Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense

Logistics Support Plan: Readiness and Sustainment Status and service

input to these reports. To understand equipment requirements, we

interviewed an official from the Office of the Deputy Assistant to the

Secretary of Defense, Chemical and Biological Defense; the Joint Nuclear,

Biological, and Chemical Defense Board; the Joint Staff; and other

organizations and obtained documents showing how many suits, masks,

breathing filters, gloves, boots, and hoods are needed to support

operations. We also obtained the Center for Army Analysis’ Joint Service

Chemical Defense Equipment Consumption Rates IV, Volume II; briefing

slides; guidance; directives; memorandums; cables; and other documents

that specify requirements. We also used service guidance to determine the

number of servicemembers scheduled for deployment who need

protection. We did not evaluate the validity of the requirements. To

calculate on-hand stocks, we obtained inventory records from war reserve

or other depots in the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the

Netherlands, elsewhere in Europe, and aboard prepositioned ships in

Guam to determine the size of the stockpile. As a result of the national

security reviews under way at the time of our review, requirements for

chemical defense equipment could change. If so, current risk assessments

would need revision.

To determine how DOD’s inventory management practices affected risk,

we tried to verify the accuracy of inventory data reported by the services.

We did this by (1) interviewing officials and obtaining documents showing

how the inventory data were collected and verified, (2) obtaining Navy

documents showing the number of suits still in the inventory that had not

expired and comparing that number to the reported inventory, and

(3) obtaining JSLIST suit production data. We also tried to determine how

many of the older chemical protective suits DOD had bought and when,

but the Defense Logistics Agency could not find most of its records

documenting suit procurement. To determine the compatibility of the nine

major supply systems, we interviewed the responsible DOD officials,

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 17 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

compared system inventory procedures, checked records against physical

inventories, and obtained relevant documents. To determine how long

shelf life items can be used and to estimate equipment expiration rates, we

interviewed officials from the Army’s Soldier Biological and Chemical

Command in Maryland; Natick Soldier Center in Massachusetts; and Rock

Island Arsenal in Illinois; the Naval Sea Systems Command in Virginia; the

Air Force Headquarters Directorate of Supply in Washington, D.C.; and the

Marine Corps’ Combat Development Command in Virginia and Materiel

Command in Georgia. We also interviewed officials and obtained

documents from the Defense Logistics Agency offices in Pennsylvania

showing planned or actual procurement of JSLIST suits and other

equipment. To determine how the services and depots identify which

items will expire and need replacement, we inspected or inventoried

chemical protective suits stored at the Bluegrass Army Depot in

Richmond, KY; the Defense Logistics Agency’s war reserve depot in

Albany, GA; the Air Force’s Mobility Bag Center in Avon Park and MacDill

Air Force Base, FL; and aboard ships at the Norfolk Navy Base, Norfolk,

VA. At these locations, we met with officials and obtained supply records

and suit and other equipment expiration data.
Appendix II: Comments From the Department

of Defense

Page 18 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

Appendix II: Comments From the

Department of Defense

Note: GAO comments

supplementing those in

the report text appear at

the end of this appendix.
Appendix II: Comments From the Department

of Defense

Page 19 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

See comment 1.
Appendix II: Comments From the Department

of Defense

Page 20 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

See comment 2.

See comment 2.
Appendix II: Comments From the Department

of Defense

Page 21 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

The following is our response to the Department of Defense letter dated

September 18, 2001.

1. While DOD presents the data in the cited Annual Report to Congress

and Logistics Support Plan annexes, the data is presented on an item-byitem basis and not an ensemble basis. Consequently, the information as

presented does not give a fully reliable risk assessment.

DOD acknowledges that it has scarce resources and must manage risk

within those resource constraints. Consequently, DOD also indicated in its

comments that it will rely on industrial surge capacity to make up any

shortfall in required ensemble components. Nonetheless, the Department’s

risk assessment is based on having 120 days of supply at the units or in

war reserve. If the Department now plans to stock fewer than 120 days of

supply and rely on industrial surge to make up the difference in a crisis,

the risk level would be higher because the continuing shortages would be

greater.

2. The Air Force has developed, and the Marine Corps is developing

inventory systems, both of which include contract, lot number, and

expiration date of equipment on hand. Adopting one of these systems

DOD-wide could reduce or eliminate development costs associated with

the Business System Modernization program, assure interoperability

across the services, and meet the intent of our third recommendation.

GAO Comments
Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff

Acknowledgments

Page 22 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

William W. Cawood, Jr. (202) 512-3959

In addition to the contact named above, Brian J. Lepore, Raymond G.

Bickert, Tracy M. Brown, and Sally L. Newman made key contributions to

this report.

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff

Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Acknowledgments
Related Products

Page 23 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of

Defense (GAO-01-244, Jan. 2001).

Chemical and Biological Defense: Units Better Equipped but Training

and Readiness Reporting Problems Remain (GAO-01-27, Nov. 2000).

Chemical and Biological Defense: Program Planning and Evaluation

Should Follow Results Act Framework (GAO/T-NSIAD-00-180, May 2000).

Chemical and Biological Defense: Observations on Nonmedical Chemical

and Biological R&D Programs (GAO/T-NSIAD-00-130, Mar. 2000).

Chemical and Biological Defense: Chemical Stockpile Emergency

Preparedness Program for Oregon and Washington (GAO/NSIAD-00-13,

Oct. 1999).

Chemical and Biological Defense: Observations on Actions Taken to

Protect Military Forces (GAO/T-NSIAD-00-49, Oct. 1999).

Chemical and Biological Defense: Program Planning and Evaluation

Should Follow Results Act Framework (GAO/NSIAD-99-159, Aug. 1999).

Chemical and Biological Defense: Coordination of Nonmedical Chemical

and Biological R&D Programs (GAO/NSIAD-99-160, Aug. 1999).

Chemical and Biological Defense: DOD’s Evaluation of Improved

Garment Materials (GAO/NSIAD-98-214, Aug. 1998).

Chemical and Biological Defense: Observations on DOD’s Plans to

Protect U.S. Forces (GAO/T-NSIAD-98-83, Mar. 1998).

Assuring Condition and Inventory Accountability of Chemical

Protective Suits (D-2000-086, Feb. 25, 2000).

M41 Protection Assessment Test System Capabilities

(99-061, Dec. 24, 1998).

Unit Chemical and Biological Defense Readiness Training

(98-174, July 17, 1998).

Related Products

GAO Reports

Department of

Defense Inspector

General Reports
Related Products

Page 24 GAO-01-667 Chemical and Biological Defense

Inventory Accuracy at the Defense Depot, Columbus, Ohio

(97-102, Feb. 27, 1997).

Army Protective Mask Requirements (95-224, June 8, 1995).

(702089)
The first copy of each GAO report is free. Additional copies of reports are

$2 each. A check or money order should be made out to the

Superintendent of Documents. VISA and MasterCard credit cards are also

accepted.

Orders for 100 or more copies to be mailed to a single address are

discounted 25 percent.

Orders by mail:

U.S. General Accounting Office

P.O. Box 37050

Washington, DC 20013

Orders by visiting:

Room 1100

700 4th St., NW (corner of 4th and G Sts. NW)

Washington, DC 20013

Orders by phone:

(202) 512-6000

fax: (202) 512-6061

TDD (202) 512-2537

Each day, GAO issues a list of newly available reports and testimony. To

receive facsimile copies of the daily list or any list from the past 30 days,

please call (202) 512-6000 using a touchtone phone. A recorded menu will

provide information on how to obtain these lists.

Orders by Internet

For information on how to access GAO reports on the Internet, send an email message with “info” in the body to:

Info@www.gao.gov

or visit GAO’s World Wide Web home page at:

http://www.gao.gov

Contact one:

• Web site: http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm

• E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov

• 1-800-424-5454 (automated answering system)

Ordering Information

To Report Fraud,

Waste, and Abuse in

Federal Programs