Let me say right off the bat for anybody who doesn't already know it: I've never served in the military in any way. Although I have been under fire a few times, and had loaded guns pointed in my face, my risk was never close to what U.S. soldiers and marines face every day in Iraq. I've never worn body armor, even the stuff you can buy out of catalogs, or if you're wealthy enough, can have custom-made. I've never run a test lab or had to choose the best and/or lowest-bid manufacturer of a mass-produced military product.
In other words, I don't know beans about the technicalities of making body armor to keep uniformed Americans in Iraq safer (until we can get them out of where they should never have been sent in the first place).
Given my obvious ignorance of the workings of the military-industrial complex, maybe I am missing something, something really obvious, or some itsy-bitsy arcane detail. If so, I'll be pleased if some high mucketymuck - civilian or military - can explain to me why it is that nobody at the Pentagon seems to want to do a side-by-side test of two kinds of body armor, each of the manufacturers of which say theirs is the best.
Because - correct me if I'm wrong - no matter what one thinks about the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the people who concocted it - and what I think would require asbestos pixels to fully convey - nobody here wants American troops to go into harm's way without the best protection that our $8.4 billion a month in expenditures can buy. Right? And, no matter what our views of the machinery and machinations of the military-industrial-congressional complex, the way to know whether it is the best protection is to run a fair test. Right?
Well, maybe not. Because, as Kossack occam's hatchet has documented in 18 months' worth of Diaries on the subject, there is a very serious question about whether the best available body armor is being provided to the troops. That's a consequence of a longstanding dispute over which brand of armor (Dragon Skin or Interceptor) performs better. Performs better, as in, you know, more successfully stopping bullets and shrapnel from passing into the bodies of those wearing it. As occam's hatchet points out, the dispute includes a back story brimful of bad odor.
Yesterday, after a hearing on the subject in the House Armed Services Committee, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle sought additional, independently verified, side-by-side tests of the two brands of body armors.
Now if I were in a position of authority at the Pentagon - a laughable hypothetical, but stick with me - I'd be jumping at the chance to prove to Congress, soldiers and their kin and friends, and the rest of the American people that the right decision was made, that the body armor being sent to Iraq was tested rigorously against other brands and found superior in every way that counts.
But that's not been the response. Instead, as today's The New York Timessays:
NBC News tests conducted May 3 at a ballistics laboratory in Germany, and reviewed by retired U.S. Gen. Wayne Downing, showed that in simulated combat conditions Dragon Skin, made by privately held Pinnacle Armor Inc., outperformed Interceptor, the Army's standard-issue armor.
The Army disputes those results and released a report last month contradicting NBC's claims after the network aired a report on the matter. Senior Army officials said at Wednesday's hearing they were confident in their own ''unbiased'' test results.
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.
However, Ross [sic] said the Army will conduct separate tests of all vendors' body armor, including Dragon Skin, under a pending contract. ...
Congressional members led by Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., 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.
General Thompson, I've already admitted I'm a dumbo in such matters, so can you explain, slowly, why side-by-side tests aren't the preferred method?
And Congressman Courtney, if there's anything at all that can be done by a rank-and-file citizen to get that GAO report moving along, would you let me know? Because 26 Americans in uniform have been killed already this month in Iraq, and if even a couple of them could have been saved by a different brand of body armor, I'd sure as hell like to find out why they weren't.