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Pentagon grilled on body armor shortage

BY GLENN THRUSH | WASHINGTON BUREAU

January 12, 2006

WASHINGTON - The Army announced yesterday plans to distribute 230,000 side-protecting armor inserts to troops in Iraq over the next year amid growing criticism that the Pentagon has delayed life-saving upgrades to body armor.

Last year, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's Office found that 80 percent of the Marines who died of torso wounds from March 2003 to June 2005 in Iraq may have lived if their vests contained additional protection for the sides, arms and neck.

That report, leaked to news outlets last week, prompted Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) to summon Pentagon brass to Capitol Hill yesterday to explain delays and material shortages in military armor programs.

"We will complete the delivery of this particular equipment this year. ... 230,000 that will be done throughout this year," Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson said of the side plates yesterday.

But Sorenson refused to provide details on production and distribution, which annoyed some Democrats who attended the closed-door meeting. "We wanted to know why the Army has had all these delays and he didn't have a good answer," said one Senate staffer who attended.

Marine commanders requested improvements to side armor last June, but few of the inserts have made it to the field. That's prompted criticism from Senate Democrats, including Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who says hundreds of soldiers may have died needlessly as a result of inadequate armor.

Sorenson said the Army has already modified its Interceptor vest seven times since the 1990s.

The Marines, who commissioned the medical examiner's study in December 2004, have shipped 9,235 side-plate inserts to Iraq since November; about 19,000 more will be given to troops by April, according to Maj. Gen. William Catto of the Marines' procurement arm.

The delay in the Army program, Pentagon officials say, resulted from shortages of some materials needed to produce the ceramic armor plating and the lack of a single large contractor who can produce mass orders. The Pentagon has also been sensitive to concerns that soldiers, already burdened by 75 pounds of battle gear in a desert war, would refuse to don additional armor.

Larger plating could "reduce the mobility of the individual to the point where he or she can't protect themselves in trying to dodge a certain situation in combat," Warner said.

Catto said that extra shoulder protection is available to any Marine, but many trade additional safety for mobility.

Still, many Democrats seemed unimpressed by the military's explanations. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) yesterday introduced a bill that would provide a "protective equipment allowance" of $1,100 for each soldier deployed to Iraq. And Clinton campaign aide Ann Lewis sent out an e-mail message slamming the Bush administration's body armor policy as "unforgivable."