Defense Logistics: Army and Marine Corps' Body Armor Requirements, Controls, and Other Issues

摘要

In recent years, a number of reports and newspaper articles have cited concerns regarding the level of protection and the available amounts of body armor to protect deployed service members. As part of GAO's efforts to monitor the Department of Defense's (DoD) and the services' action to protect ground forces, GAO reviewed the Army and Marine Corps' actions to address these concerns. On April 26, 2007, GAO issued a report regarding the Army and the Marine Corps' individual body armor systems. Today's testimony summarizes the report's findings regarding the extent to which the Army and Marine Corps have done the following: (1) have met the theater requirements for body armor, (2) have the controls in place to assure that the manufacturing and fielding of body armor meet requirements, and (3) have shared information regarding their efforts on body armor ballistic requirements and testing. The report also included additional information concerning whether contractors or non-DoD civilians obtain body armor in the same way as U.S. forces and DoD civilians given the number of contractors and non-DoD civilians in CENTCOM's area of operation. GAO did not make recommendations in the report. DoD officials did not provide written comments on the report but technical comments were incorporated as appropriate.