US Army Sends Troops to War In Untested Body Armor

Welcome to a post about one of the laziest and most irresponsible stories you're ever going to read in the Washington Post. Not only does this story accept at face value contradictory and easily disproven statements, from the government AND a defense contractor, it fails to do one of the basic things a story should always do, and that is, inform the reader.

Can we just go one week without stories like this? Please?

Government auditors said yesterday that nearly half of 28 contracts to manufacture body armor for Army soldiers were completed without the gear ever going through an initial test.

Nearly $3 billion worth of body armor did not go through early inspections known as "first article testing," or FAT, that are performed before major production to ensure that a company can meet the contract's requirements and to catch any defects, according to a report by the Defense Department's inspector general. Contracting officials say the initial testing is done to save time and money.

"Army contracting officials did not require or perform FAT for 13 of the 28 Army contracts and orders reviewed," the report said. As a result, the Defense Department "has no assurance" that the equipment produced under the 13 contracts "met the required standards," the report said.

Officials with the inspector general's office said its auditors did not test the armor or look for flaws after it was made and put into use. The Army manager who oversees the body armor program told Defense Department officials that "the Army has no evidence of deaths that can be attributed to defective body armor."

A spokesman for the Army said that while some paperwork may have been missing, none of the body armor had problems. "None of this equipment in all of the tests we've done is flawed," said Paul Boyce, the spokesman. "It has not shown any signs of flaws."

Are you kidding me? Here's one of literally hundreds of reports and stories that anyone with half a brain could stumble across if they weren't trying too hard:

In its investigative report, however, NBC interviewed Jim Magee, a retired Marine colonel who designed the current body armor in use by the military, known as Interceptor. Magee said he felt Dragon Skin was the best available -- "two steps ahead of anything I've ever seen." Other people interviewed for the show claimed that officers at lower levels tried to sabotage the use of Dragon Skin because it was not Army developed and would threaten their funding and programs.

NBC also reported that the CIA had approved Dragon Skin for its elite operatives and that select soldiers assigned to protect generals and VIPs in Iraq and Afghanistan wore Dragon Skin.

And they do that because of stories like this, h/t to Soldiers For The Truth:

Interceptor Armor Test Sequence
The Interceptor SAPI (Level III) plate failed, and failed miserably, at the 2d round while Dragon Skin Level IIIE (Enhanced) defeated 186 Rounds (see Below) .
The Setting: "On Thursday, military members, law enforcement agents and the media were invited to the C2 shooting center in Virginia Beach for a test - Dragon Skin vs. the body armor currently being used by the military."
Choice Comment on Dragon Skin: "This is absolutely unbelievable. I've never seen anything defeat these types of rounds this close before in my life," said Marc Whedbee, a former soldier and law enforcement officer.
Next Up : "The traditional body armor being worn by troops overseas today. The plate did not hold up.

There are links aplenty here if you want to look into this yourself.

So here's my plea to anyone working for publications like the WaPo: Can we please--PLEASE--do a simple search AFTER a company makes a statement like this:

One manufacturer, Point Blank Body Armor of Pompano Beach, Fla., said in a statement that "there are rigorous testing procedures in place at Point Blank Solutions to ensure that our products are in accordance with the requirements of all of our customers, be it the United States government, U.S. Armed Forces and the various domestic law enforcement agencies we service."

Pardon me while I roll my eyes in disgust:

SOUTHERN STATES POLICE BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION, INC., et al. vs. POINT BLANK BODY ARMOR, INC. AND PROTECTIVE APPAREL CORPORATION OF AMERICA, INC.

Summary
A settlement in the case was reached between the parties and preliminarily approved on December 12, 2005. The lawsuit is a class action that asserts that the defendants, Point Blank Body Armor, Inc. and Protective Apparel Corporation of America, Inc. ("Point Blank/PACA") manufactured bullet-resistant vests containing Zylon®, including Galls branded vests containing Zylon®, that failed to meet the performance characteristics for which they were warranted. The defendants deny the allegations in the lawsuit.

The vests involved were sold by Point Blank/PACA and their distributors to state and local law enforcement agencies and others and include, among others, the following popular models: Fusion, Legacy, Galls ZL1, Galls ZL2, Galls ZL3, The Beast, RTZ, ZG, ZPG, ZGS-2, Z3-2 AND WF 1002. On August 24, 2005, the United States Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, decertified all vests containing-Zylon® and on the same date issued a warning stating "The National Institute of Justice hereby advises that it has identified…Zylon® as a material that appears to create a risk of death or serious injury as a result of degraded ballistic performance when used in body armor." Point Blank/PACA do not concur with the conclusions reached by the NIJ.

Here's another lawsuit, filed in Florida:

COMPLAINT FOR INJUNCTIVE AND OTHER RELIEF -Plaintiff Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") alleges as follows INTRODUCTION 1. DHB Industries, Inc. ("DHB") is a major supplier of body armor to the U.S. military and law enforcement agencies. From at least 2003 through 2005, Defendant Dawn M. Schlegel, DHB's former Chief Financial Officer, and Defendant Sandra L. Hatfield, DHB's former Chief Operating Officer, engaged in widespread manipulation of DHB's inventory, cost of goods sold, gross profit, gross margin, pre-tax income, and other figures through fraudulent and repeated violations of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ("GAAP"). This resulted in DHB materially misstating key financial information in its filings with the Commission and in its earnings releases.

Now, do you think the fact that the Army didn't do those tests matters? Especially when you look at the track record of DHB? Come on.

So while US troops were being handed body armor that hadn't been tested and was manufactured, at least in part, by companies like DHB, where did your tax dollars go? Into the pocket of DHB Chairman David H. Brooks.

In December of 2005, Brooks reportedly spent $10 million on his daughter's bat mitzvah party. Entertainment was provided by Tom Petty, Aerosmith, and 50 Cent.

Now, I can understand why the WaPo wouldn't tell you that very last part, but shouldn't they have done some basic, simple research into the Dragon Skin vs Interceptor controversy? And maybe, just maybe, pointed to several years worth of embarrassing developments in the saga of DHB?

It's the Procurement Fraud, Stupid

Sure would be nice to hear the candidates talk about this issue:

WASHINGTON - The Army is ordering a major overhaul of the way it buys supplies for troops in combat zones as the number of criminal investigations into wartime contract fraud nears triple figures.

Chief among the moves is the formation of a new contracting command to better manage military purchasing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, according to a memo written by Army Secretary Pete Geren and obtained by The Associated Press.

To be run by generals, the post will control an enterprise stained by scandal and long unappreciated by other sectors of the Army.

Geren's one-page memo, dated Jan. 30, directs the Army's existing contracting agency to be replaced by the new command, which is being designed to have broad authority over the acquisition of items ranging from bottled water to bullets.

The Army Contracting Command will be headed initially by Jeffrey Parsons, a civilian official, an appointment that underscores how few senior Army officers there are with extensive credentials in defense contracting.

The position eventually will be filled by a two-star general who will have two one-star generals as deputies.

[snip]

The panel, chaired by former Pentagon acquisition chief Jacques Gansler, said the Army's contracting employees were "understaffed, overworked, under-trained, under-supported and, most important, undervalued."

Those shortcomings created an environment ripe for the contract fraud scandals now plaguing the Army, the panel concluded.

The Army Criminal Investigation Command has 91 ongoing criminal investigations related to contract fraud in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, according to spokesman Chris Grey.

Grey said 26 U.S. citizens have been charged with contract fraud — 19 of those are military and civilian government employees — and more than $15 million in bribes has changed hands.

In its 106-page report, the Gansler panel rebuked the Army for sending a "skeleton contracting force" into Iraq to support the troops.

It's not that there aren't any Generals who can do the job. Virtually any one of them could. It's that most of them are engaged in enriching themselves now that they've taken off the uniform. Why bother to fill a job like this when corporation x will pay four or five times the salary for one tenth of the work? Hey--look at Tommy Franks. He can rake in $100,000 or so just by letting a shitty charity steal money while plastering his mug on their website. As a matter of fact, would YOU want Tommy Franks to take judgement like that and apply it to fixing the procurement fraud? No thanks.

Those condos at "seizure" World in Northern Virginia don't come cheap, ya know.

Procurement fraud just isn't the sexy, exciting and fun topic that it should be. But it's about taking large sums of money and stealing them from YOU, the taxpayer. Imagine someone running into a bank and running out with a massive pile of cash that they then use to put a new addition on their McMansion. I know, it's still not sexy.

More trouble for the GOP

Just what the GOP needs...an accounting scandal is now rocking the National Republican Congressional Committee. And it was all so perfectly predictable, what with the lifting of the internal controls and all...

From 1999 to 2006 the NRCC was led by Virginia Rep. Tom Davis and New York Rep. Thomas Reynolds, and during that time the NRCC opted to waive the rule that the Executive Committee of the organization sign off on any expenditure in excess of $10,000 dollars. They also consolidated disparate department budgets and paid everything from one account, and repealed the prohibition on committee staff earning income from outside companies. On the one hand, this arrangement allowed rapid responses to be mounted in hotly contested campaigns. On the other, it created an atmosphere rife with temptations such as fraud and conflicts of interest.

But the actions also may have contributed to a perceived lack of oversight within the NRCC, especially over financial records, a failure that outside observers blame for an accounting scandal that could go much deeper than the allegedly forged audit a former treasurer sent to the committee’s principal lender in January. NRCC officials contacted the FBI soon after discovering that the former employee, Christopher J. Ward, had submitted what they believe to be a fake internal audit to Wachovia as part of a loan application by the committee.

House Republicans are still awaiting the completion of an outside audit of the committee, since at this time they are unsure of the scale or nature of the financial problems at the committee. Current NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) has publicly stated that there were “accounting irregularities” at the committee that “may include fraud.”

"May?"

Yes, I'm sure that is why Mr. Ward retained high-powered white-collar criminal defense attorney Ronald Machen to represent him during the FBI probe...

Since Cole took over, he has made some real, concrete and tangible changes, but the scandal is so far reaching that those changes amount to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Those so inclined can read the whole sorry tale at the Politico.

The Phony Soldier as CEO

Blue Girl picked up on this guy last week, but neither one of us got around to doing much with the story because, well, we're busy people and there was so much going on.

How is it that several actual Veterans can work for a man who "claims" to have been a Veteran but never actually served? I'm scratching my head because nothing in this story makes sense. These are people at the executive level. There's a former one-star General who works for a man claiming military service. Did they ever sit down and talk? Did they ever compare notes? Or are the executives at this company complicit in hiding the fact that the owner of the company didn't serve because it would drive away business? Because the easiest thing in the world to spot is a phony Veteran, and what should follow when one discovers that the CEO of the company you work for is lying about being a Veteran are outrage and resignations.

Here's what we know about Barrett H. Moore: he is a donor to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth AND a donor to George W Bush. He apparently shares with those entities an affinity for lying and filing bankruptcy. He has, working for him, some very distinguished people who actually served in the military.

Here's the story of a phony soldier:

In December 2003, the founders of Triple Canopy, a private security firm in Baghdad, caught their first big break, signing a contract with the Coalition Provisional Authority governing Iraq. Within four months, Triple Canopy had signed six contracts worth more than $28 million to guard U.S. facilities throughout Iraq.

For the military veterans who founded the company and Barrett H. Moore, who was then Triple Canopy's chief executive officer, these agreements launched the company on the path to what it is today: one of the leading private military contractors, sharing a $1 billion contract with Blackwater USA and DynCorp to guard U.S. personnel in the Middle East.

Moore, 43, a Chicago businessman, now presents himself as a former U.S. Army Intelligence officer and business "visionary" who revolutionized the private security market but an Army spokesman said Moore was never an officer and never had intelligence training. Moore, fired by Triple Canopy in 2004, has launched a new private security firm called Sovereign Deed. He has parlayed his Triple Canopy success into political influence, persuading Republican and Democratic state officials to rewrite state law so that Sovereign Deed can receive $10 million in tax abatements and other incentives to establish a "national response center" for its private disaster relief business in northern Michigan.

I'd sure like to find out what was paid to those state officials--whether it was in campaign contributions or drinks and dinner--to get such a sweet deal.

In promoting Sovereign Deed, Moore has emphasized the military expertise of himself and the company's top officials. On the company's Web site, Moore states that he "served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, specializing in issues related to the non-proliferation of biological weapons and related weapons of mass destruction (WMD)."

What Moore's Pentagon patrons and political allies in Michigan have not known is the true story of Moore's military service. According to U.S. Army record keepers, Moore never completed his Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program in college and was discharged from an inactive branch of the Reserves in 1994 without ever having gone through basic training. Contrary to the claims on Sovereign Deed's Web site, Moore never served as an Army intelligence officer, or in any other branch of the country's armed forces.

Moore's brushes with law enforcement also escape detection. He was convicted of three counts of criminal fraud in Australia in 1992 and served time in prison, according to court records there. An appeals court later reversed Moore's conviction. But in a related criminal trial, Moore acknowledged participating in an "illegal enterprise" to smuggle cars from Chicago to Melbourne and admitted fabricating documents as part of the operation.

Can you say two-bit crook? How did this clown ever get within shouting distance of doing major business with the Federal Government and the State of Michigan?

Moore and his associates at Sovereign Deed have emphasized military experience as a key feature of the company. The firm's spokesman in northern Michigan is retired Brigadier General Richard Mills, a former deputy commanding general for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.

In community meetings about Sovereign Deed's plans in November, Mills received hearty applause when he was introduced as a 30-year military veteran. He said he was proud to associate with veterans whom he called "the most magnificent of people."

In a phone interview Mills said that Moore was among the people who brought military experience to Sovereign Deed, adding he knew people who had served with him. He declined to provide any names.

But a spokesman for the National Personnel Records Service in St. Louis, which maintains records on all armed service personnel, said the NPRS has no record of Moore's service. Another search by the Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., determined that Moore never completed his college ROTC training at DePauw University in Indiana in 1985-86, had never gone into basic training or been on active duty or had intelligence responsibilities.

In response to questions from Michigan Messenger, a Sovereign Deed official stressed the accusation, if true, was quite serious.

"Stating that one has falsified military service goes to the very core of pride, honor, and integrity of those who have served," wrote Glenn Collins, the chief operating officer of Sovereign Deed, in an email.

So the very excellent Michigan Messenger, which deserves a mighty tip of the hat for this story, has now been "sued" because this story is "defamatory."

Michigan Messenger's reporting on Barrett Moore, founder of the Sovereign Deed private security firm, is "unscrupulous and defamatory," says the firm's attorney in a letter sent to Michigan Messenger last Friday. The letter demanded that Michigan Messenger remove from its Web site a story headlined "Sovereign Deed CEO lied about military service, records show." Sovereign Deed also requested withdrawal of another Messenger story published last week, "Hypocrisy and Ambition: What the Barrett Moore story says about America" by Ed Brayton.

If the Messenger did not remove the stories by 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, Sovereign Deed's lawyers threatened "all appropriate legal proceedings," including "likely alleging defamation, tortious interference with business relationships and prospective business relationships."

Michigan Messenger declined to remove the stories.

If the US Army says you didn't fucking serve, you didn't fucking serve. They do tend to make minor mistakes here and there. They don't confuse a dropout cadet with someone who did thirty years as a commissioned officer. It just doesn't work that way.

Here's the biographical sketch from the Sovereign Deed website--see how long it takes for them to remove this para from the page:

Mr. Moore served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, specializing in issues related to the non-proliferation of biological weapons and related weapons of mass destruction (WMD). After completion of his service, Mr. Moore continued his entrepreneurial activities and founded several organizations, including Duramitt (AMI) and Knight International (an overseas based manufacturer and trading company, respectively).

I'm guessing if you click the link today and nothing happens, it means someone had an "oh shit!" moment and took it down. I find it hard to believe that, in this day and age, someone is stupid enough to have confused a thirty year career as an active duty commissioned officer with dropping out of ROTC after a year and thinks they can simply get away with it. It's not 1971 and you really can't pull that shit these days, what with those two or three big computer databases they got now and all that.

UPDATE I - MORE ON SOVEREIGN DEED

Also on the payroll and working for Moore is Former Los Angeles Fire Chief William R. Bamattre, who resigned last year:

The city's fire chief, given his job a decade ago with a mandate to stamp out racism and sexism, is leaving amid controversy over a black firefighter's claim that his white colleagues served him spaghetti with dog food.

Here's one of the legitimate soldiers who work for Moore: former Brigadier General Richard W Mills, as pictured in 2002 with President Bush at Fort Bragg, NC:



PHOTO SOURCE: whitehouse.gov

Now, General Mills is an actual soldier with a verifiable biography:

Richard W. Mills, Executive Vice President — Strategic Development

Mr. Mills joined Sovereign Deed after having achieved the rank of Brigadier General during a distinguished 32 year career with the U.S. Army. Having served as a U.S. Army Special Forces Officer for 27 years in a variety of operational, staff and command positions, he has an extensive background in military and interagency operations.

Now, when do you suppose Moore will simply claim that his biography was "confused" with that of General Mills?

UPDATE II - BARRETT HOLLOWAY MOORE ON TRIAL IN AUSTRALIA

Here's what appears in the legal proceedings against Moore in 1992:

Page 24:

The first witness called by the plaintiff was Mr. Moore who, as a 25 year old, had come to Australia in early 1988 to work as an equity options trader with the Macquarie Bank in Sydney.

UPDATE III - PALE RIDER

I made a mistake in not more clearly stating that I think that Moore might wriggle out of this by claiming that his "bio" was confused with that of one of the legitimate Veterans at his company, and I should not have insinuated that he was claiming that he, Moore, served for "thirty years" when that is what General Mills actually served on active duty. Moore does not state for how long her served (that would reveal how much rank or responsibility he might have accrued) and that was the real point I was, clumsily, trying to get at.