CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE: Improved Risk Assessment and Inventory Management are Needed

摘要

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, masldng 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.