As Meteor Blades told in his front page article today, at yesterday's House Armed Services Committee hearing on the military's testing of body armor, congressional representatives expressed enough frustration with the Pentagon's obfuscation and obstruction that they finally said, "ENOUGH!! Test the damn stuff already!" But the Pentagon told Congress to shove it:
Congressional members are requesting an independent study by the Government Accountability Office to review the Army's testing procedures, a comparison study and review of current safety compliance rules.
Lt. Gen. N. Ross Thompson, military deputy to the Assistant Secretary for the Army, said despite the wishes of Congress and Dragon Skin's manufacturer, the Army will not conduct a side-by-side test.
" . . . despite the wishes of Congress . . . " - now, there's a shocker, coming from this administration.
According to the Air Force Times, the Army has graciously "offered" to test Dragon Skin - presumably, the same way they "tested" it in May 2006, which is what led to the current fiasco:
The Army will test Dragon Skin vests – along with products from any other bidder – if the maker of the controversial flexible body armor submits its product to a request for proposal that’s open until late July, officials said Wednesday on Capitol Hill.
Uh, yeah, sure: I'll hand my body armor to the same group of clowns who tested it last year. Sure. Except - oops! - I can't do that, because one of those clowns - the guy in charge of the testing last year - is now a vice president at Armor Holdings, the lead manufacturer of the military's current body armor - you know, the kind that NBC blew holes in during that Dateline segment a few weeks ago? Yeah.
Oh, and before I forget: Please explain to me, House Armed Services Committee, how it is you could hold a hearing on dubious testing conducted by the Pentagon a year ago, and not call ANY eyewitnesses to the testing, from the Army's side? Such as Col. John D. Norwood, the aforementioned vice president at Armor Holdings who 12 months ago was program manager at PEO Soldier, present at the testing, the person who called Gen. Mark Brown on Brown’s third day as PEO Soldier, and told him Dragon Skin had failed the testing?
But put that aside – for the moment. Let me see if I can give some idea as to why the credibility of the Pentagon might be subject to reasonable doubt when it comes to this issue. Why don’t we start with the professed infallibility (exactly the right word) of their vaunted Interceptor Body Armor.
Lemme see if I’ve got this straight:
The Pentagon has insisted that Interceptor is "the best in the world." In fact, they have steadfastly maintained that Interceptor has sustained zero penetrations in testing. At his May 21 press briefing, Gen. Brown said
I will say up front that all six of the body armor producers of the U.S. Army in their employ passed this live-fire test protocol with zero failures. Zero failures is the correct answer. One failure is sudden death and you lose the game.
And then he said,
Since the inception of the Interceptor body armor program in 1999, Pinnacle has never once responded to a full and open competition. They have never gone head-to-head with other producers that have passed that test protocol with zero penetration.
He also said,
We have conducted the same live-fire -- we test to a standard. We have conducted the same test standard for all of our current body armor producers. Every one of them is tasked with zero failures.
And in case you missed it, he said,
It's a multi-event test. We start off with the most difficult, most rigorous event first, because if we can induce a failure early on, that means that we don't have to spend $250,000 on the test because one failure, one penetration, you fail the test.
Wow. Okay, okay, okay! I get it!: Interceptor has never failed in testing. Ever. Never, ever, ever.
Q Just to be clear, the Interceptor body armor that you have got has never failed any of these tests?
GEN. BROWN: Not in the first article test. We would have a lot that would fail. We test each lot, and if the lot failed, we go back and we say, "What happened? Was it a production mistake, a technical mistake?" And then we'd find out why it failed. But the ones that the soldiers have all passed the first article test.
Oh - so Interceptor has never failed the testing - except when it did, right?
Okay, so Interceptor is infallible, and Dragon Skin is a dismal failure, with armor-piercing rounds cutting through it like butter, right?
Not.
At least, both of those myths were pretty well demolished by NBC's Dateline segment.
But the Pentagon adamantly refuses to conduct side-by-side independent tests of Dragon Skin and Interceptor - or any other body armor system - to see how they stack up to each other, rather than to some arbitrary "standard" – as if these military specifications (MILSPEC) – came down from Mt. Sinai on stone tablets, rather than being cooked up by – by whom, exactly? Most likely by the designers of Interceptor.
Let me give you a hypothetical example of a MILSPEC written to conform to a pre-existing standard – that is to say, to the standard of a manufacturer’s pre-existing product: Say I’m designing a test for a piece of equipment whose sole purposes - sole purpose - is to stop bullets, I’m gonna say, Gee, I want this to be able to stop as many bullets as possible – or else what’m I gonna do, hang a sign on my troops saying,
INSURGENTS: PLEASE LIMIT ATTACKS TO TWO ROUNDS PER AMERICAN. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION. HAVE A NICE OCCUPATION.
But, no: Whoever wrote the MILSPEC for Individual Body Armor decided somehow that it only needed to withstand two rounds of armor-piercing ammunition – which, as was amply demonstrated in NBC's tests, is juuuust about exactly what an Interceptor vest will withstand before failing. Whaddaya know.
Yeah, I’m a skeptic. So call me pisher.
When the dust clears, at this point, what we are left with is this: in the only result that is indisputable - from the only objective, verifiable, witnessed-by-millions test that all of us have seen, NBC's Dateline segment - Dragon Skin significantly outperformed Interceptor when hit with multiple rounds of armor-piercing ammunition.
Now, as evidenced by the discussion on Meteor Blades’ article, as well as in comment threads from earlier diaries on the subject, there are those who are willing to give 100% credence to the Pentagon’s position on the testing of Dragon Skin – and, what often goes unstated, by implication the Pentagon’s testing of Interceptor, for that matter. As I have written before, there is plenty of recent evidence to suggest that the military testing and procurement process is far from perfect or infallible If you doubt that, just Google "Darleen Druyun." ("Oooh, but that was a one-time deal!" Pentagon toadies will squeal. Yeah - and Rodney King was the only black guy ever beaten to a pulp by the LAPD. Gimme a freakin' break.)
For anyone who was not present throughout the entire process to say that they know for certain that the Pentagon tests of Dragon Skin last May - and, for that matter, any previous tests on Interceptor - were conducted with 100% integrity, is disingenuous, to put it politely.
What was shown on the NBC tests is irrefutable. One can argue about the particulars of the testing procedures (e.g., flat surface vs. curved, etc.), but the fact remains that by putting their tests on camera, in front of millions, NBC cast reasonable doubt on the Pentagon’s claims of Dragon Skin’s abysmal performance.
And that’s the whole point:
I’m not asking anyone to take Pinnacle Armor’s claims at face value – far from it. I’m simply saying, enough doubt exists to warrant independent testing of both systems. Period.
There are those (including the Pentagon) who will say, "But we don’t test side-by-side." Unfortunately, enough doubt has been cast on the process that without an apples-to-apples test that ensures identical conditions – and there is no reason on earth not to conduct tests in that way in this instance, except for bureaucratic intransigence, which is no reason at all – the matter will not be settled.
I have no dog in this fight, except for the protection of our troops. If there is better armor out there than what they are getting right now, they should get it.
Random thoughts before closing:
Some cogent comments from MB’s thread:
"Side by Side" testing is not what you want
What you want is repeatable, well documented tests under controlled conditions and rated by impartial judges.
A side by side test is often considered automatically fair because the products are, at least to the naked eye, being tested under identical conditions. However, that doesn't make the test fair. You can do side by side testing under conditions that are favorable for one product, or which avoid situations that are unfavorable for it.
The problem in this situation is that we know the judges are not impartial, because they could be hired by one of the contractors after they retire; to make it worse, the tests are secret.
Which means we have to trust the people who run the tests. Although those people might find it insulting (they always do), we shouldn't trust them. Not because they aren't trustworthy, but because that's not good government. Good government is based on transparency, not trust.
by grumpynerd
To which carolita responded:
Reputable scientists don't get insulted
by an insistance on transparency, accuracy and replicability. It is at the core of science and reliability testing. If an experiment cannot be replicated by other scientists, if it doesn't produce accurate results, if all aspects of it aren't discolsed, it is bad science. Period. (I am fully aware of proprietary issues of materials, etc. However, if you cannot disclose the exact conditions of testing, and experiment cannot be replicated. It may serve for internal development and dialog, but not for comparison and decisionmaking by third parties.)
Just like no reputable doctor is insulted when a patient gets a second opinion, no reputable scientist would be insulted by having their experiment replicated and no reputable technician would be insulted by having their results verified.
by carolita
Exactly. If what the Pentagon says about Dragon Skin – and Interceptor – is true, then they should be encouraging these tests, not fighting them tooth and nail. If they are truly "scientific" tests, then they will be 100% reproducible, and anyone, anywhere, anytime who conducts them should get exactly the same results, every time. If that doesn’t happen, then the tests aren’t "scientific."
Regarding the military procurement system:
The contracting process.
Having been a defense contractor, may I lead you through the rules?
- Choose a vendor who might hire you when your contract expires.
Note: if you are actually a serviceperson, especially a high-ranking officer, this rule applies even more strongly.
- State a need. Find one, if necessary.
- Ask your preferred vendor to provide you with an RFP (Request for Proposal) in order to ensure that a) no effort is required on your part, and b) no other vendor's proposal quite matches the needs stated in rule 2).
- Award the contract on a low-bid basis, but later allow price-hikes based on "unforseen contingencies."
- Get the job half-done. Leave the theater to great applause. Testimonials dinners!
- Come back a few months later (in 1983) as the head of the company to whom the contract was awarded.
- Receive plaudits for returning to help with the war effort. A General returning to Arabia as the head of - oh, say, something that rhymes with Northrup - can easily make ten times the salary he enjoyed as a general.
(But, that was long ago. I'm sure things are better now. After all, Donald Rumsfeld and Douglas Feith have "streamlined" the procurement process.)
- Fire everyone on the civilian side who knows what went on. The military guys are cool. They're used to chain of command.
Rule Number 9) There is no Rule Number 9)
Rule Nuber 10) There are no rules.
And, back to Rule 1) if you want to make a profit.
Peace.
by willb48
Since this controversy first erupted, you could pretty much count on most of those blogs and other sites with a military bent siding with the Pentagon, blithely trusting that the testing and procurement process was infallible and corruption-proof. But in the past few weeks, one of the few defense-oriented sites I've seen that has taken a sensible approach to the controversy is uscavonpoint.com. They write,
Since the Army’s records and notes so clearly differ from those of NBC’s Gen. Downing, the NBC investigators, and the National Institute of Justice certifications, it is clear that a new, cleanly [sic] and independent testing is necessary. . .
With both House and Senate investigation on the horizon, as well as a GAO inquiry, one would imagine that Army would want an independent test in order to prove verify the earlier results and close out this issue.
And that exactly sums up my feelings on the matter.
It's almost comical to watch the Pentagon's bumbling attempts at spin control in this whole mess. Take, for instance, the horse’s head the Pentagon tried to send Murray Neal in the middle of the hearing yesterday? I mean - Smurf, please.
See, the Pentagon, in its ongoing efforts to discredit and/or intimidate Pinnacle Armor, its owner and its supporters, has decided to claim that he’s a criminal:
A manufacturer of body armor is under criminal investigation for possibly making false claims, Pentagon officials said Wednesday . . .
Air Force investigators said they had been investigating Pinnacle Armor of Fresno, Calif., for a year, looking into allegations the company lied about having its vests certified as safe. Pinnacle made the claim nine months before it received the federal certification, officials said.
Ummm, okaaayy . . . So, a year after the Air Force learned of this easily verified alleged misdeed, all of a sudden, in the middle of a Congressional hearing, the Air Force decides it’s going to be Perry Mason, and spring this breathtaking allegation on an unsuspecting world, hopefully to a chorus of "ooooo"s and "aaaahhh"s?
Riiiiiiight.
Well, knock yourselves out, I say. Oh, and while you’re at it, would you mind please investigating The Curious Case of Col. Norwood, who, unless I am greatly mistaken, while he was program manager for PEO Soldier, approved a new contract for $32 million worth of Interceptor body armor from Armor Holdings in February 2006, then went to work a few months later as a vice president for Armor Holdings, in spite of the fact that, according to the United States Code, specifically, 41 U.S.C. 423(d),
A former official of a Federal agency may not accept compensation from a contractor as an employee [or] officer. . . of the contractor within a period of one year after such former official . . . served, at the time of selection of the contractor or the award of a contract to that contractor, as the procuring contracting officer, the source selection authority, a member of the source selection evaluation board, or the chief of a financial or technical evaluation team in a procurement in which that contractor was selected for award of a contract in excess of $10,000,000 . . . [or] served as the program manager . . . for a contract in excess of $10,000,000 awarded to that contractor
Yeah – um, call me crazy, but I think a sequence of facts like that could certainly cast the whole, you know, integrity thing into question. Not to mention maybe being, like, y'know - a crime.
Bottom line: If we’re lucky, Congress will force unbiased third-party testing, based on sensible criteria. Then we’ll know. End of story.
In the meantime, let’s get our troops the hell out of Iraq.
Thanks for reading.
(Here's a compilation of earlier diaries on the subject, if you're really a glutton for punishment.- o.h.)