Six defense contractors produced more than 5 million bullet-proof body armor inserts whose quality the Army cannot guarantee, at a cost of upwards of $2.5 billion.

An audit by the Department of Defense inspector general found the inserts—produced by ArmorWorks, Simula, Cercom, Composix, Armacel Armor and Ceradyne from 2004-2006—were not tested consistently for factors such as velocity, humidity, temperature or altitude. Additionally, the results of several tests were not properly documented.

“The Army lacks assurance that 5.1 million ballistic inserts acquired…provide appropriate protection,” the IG wrote.

The report is the most recent in a series of audits first requested by Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., following a New York Times story in 2006 that reported 80 percent of Marines who died in Iraq due to upper body wounds could have survived if they had more body armor.

“Despite armor upgrades, many soldiers remain unhappy with the quality of their body armor, and have continued to purchase equipment from private companies,” Slaughter wrote in a letter to the DoD inspector general. “Unfortunately, the Army recently barred service personnel from using non-DoD procured body armor. I am concerned that our soldiers in the field—who think they need better armor than provided to them by DoD—were not consulted before the Army banned privately bought armor.”

The congressionally requested audits found that preliminary testing, called First Article Testing (FAT), was not part of 13 of 28 Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) contracts. The contractors’ qualifications were then investigated further, with the most recent report investigating testing processes for seven of the 13 contracts. The first six were examined in a report released in January.

The Veterans Affairs medical centers are in hot water again. A Government Accountability Office report reveals systemic deficiencies in sanitation and sterilization procedures at medical centers across the country, jeopardizing the health and safety of millions of veterans who rely on the VA for health care.

Many medical centers have failed to develop training programs to teach staff how to correctly clean, disinfect and sterilize reusable medical equipment, like surgical equipment. As a result, staff may not be sterilizing reusable equipment correctly, creating a serious medical risk.

A year after the VA required medical centers to develop this training, three of the six centers checked by the GAO had still not developed the training.

Officials at one medical center said they had not developed the required sanitation training for items like surgical instruments because they did not understand that they were required to do so.

The effects of these safety inadequacies have been seen across the country. In 2010, a Missouri news station reported that about 1,800 veterans were potentially exposed to hepatitis and HIV at the St. Louis VA medical center when workers washed dental equipment by hand instead of sending it to a hospital to be sanitized and sterilized.

GAO also found weaknesses in VA’s oversight of purchasing requirements at the medical centers. The staff at one medical center ordered the wrong piece for a dialysis machine, which caused blood to pass into the machine incorrectly, and potentially exposed 83 patients to infectious diseases, like HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. GAO identified purchasing problems all six of the medical centers it visited.

 “Until these weaknesses are addressed, the safety of veterans receiving care at VA medical centers could potentially be at risk,” the GAO report said.

From 1998 through 2007, sources outside the federal government paid for more than 22,000 trips worth at least $26 million. While these trips are generally permitted under federal regulations, military watchdogs say the system is broken. Allowing the drug industry to send military pharmacists to Las Vegas or letting a Saudi prince pay a top official’s way to Riyadh, they warn, can create serious conflicts of interest. Defense officials say these trips are thoroughly vetted to guard against impropriety.

According to the analysis:

• The medical industry paid for more travel than any other outside interest — more than $10 million for some 8,700 trips, or about 40 percent of all outside sponsored travel. Among the targets: military pharmacists, doctors, and others who administer the Pentagon’s $6 billion-plus annual budget for prescription drugs;
• Foreign governments paid more than $2.6 million for 1,500 trips. The biggest sponsors: U.S. allies Australia, Singapore, and Japan, but the list also includes China, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates;
• Manufacturers of retail goods paid for more than 500 trips, at a cost of about $470,000. Their targets included buyers at on-base retail outlets, which sold more than $12 billion of merchandise in 2007. Among the sponsors: Nike, Skechers, Mattel, and Sony;
• Thousands of the trips were taken to popular vacation spots such as San Diego, Las Vegas, Honolulu, San Remo and Venice, Italy, and Jeju Island, South Korea. Among the guests were spouses, who participated in at least 240 of the trips.

The travel disclosure records, submitted in paper form to DOD’s Office of Government Ethics, were digitized and sorted in a joint project by the Center and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Two thousand camels scissor-kicked their way along a 12-mile race track, garnering thunderous applause from the Saudi crowd. It was the 2005 Janadriyah Festival, outside Riyadh, and in attendance was Prince Miteb bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and his special guests, a couple from northern Virginia. In addition to the festival, the prince treated Richard and Susan Millies to a musical production, banquets, and first-class flights to and from Washington, D.C. The eight-day trip ended up costing more than $24,000, with Miteb picking up the entire bill.

Why was Prince Miteb so generous to a couple from the Washington suburbs? Mr. Millies worked for the Pentagon as deputy director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which runs the program through which foreign governments purchase advanced weapons systems. And therein lies the problem, military watchdogs say, with close relationships and free travel posing potential conflicts of interest. At the time, Prince Miteb was an assistant deputy commander of the Saudi National Guard, and the kingdom utilized DSCA more than any other country except Israel and Egypt. Indeed, from 2003 through 2006, the Saudis bought $4.4 billion worth of training and equipment through the program, according to the Congressional Research Service. Some of those deals stirred controversy, including a 2008 agreement to buy $123 million worth of smart bombs.

A trip to Paris in September 2006 cost Dr. D. Gray Heppner nothing. GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s largest drug manufacturers, paid $7,800 for the lieutenant colonel and chief of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research’s Department of Immunology to attend the company’s symposium on malaria.

It was Boston in May for John W. Szabo. Medical device manufacturer Cardinal Health paid $5,000 for Szabo, then chief of the Pharmacy Service at the U.S. Army Health Clinic at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, to attend a leadership conference in 2002. The year before, Szabo went to a diabetes conference in Austin, Texas, and GlaxoSmithKline paid the bill through an unrestricted grant, totaling more than $1,000.

Trips to Tampa Bay and Austin in 2000 for Peter Bulatao were paid for by drug-makers Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline. Bulatao, then chief of the Department of Pharmacy at Lyster Army Community Hospital, in Fort Rucker, Ala., sat on the committee responsible for selecting drugs for the hospital.

These were among 8,700 trips by Department of Defense personnel paid for by the health care industry — at a cost of more than $10 million — from 1998 through 2007, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. In a joint project with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, the Center examined 22,000 travel disclosure forms filed by DOD personnel, and found that the medical industry was by far the biggest sponsor of free travel, accounting for about 40 percent of all trips. The sponsors included not only drug and device makers but also health foundations and trade groups often funded by those companies.

A dozen companies in which Carlyle had a controlling interest netted more than $9.3 billion in contracts.

Overall, six private investment firms, including Carlyle, received nearly $14 billion in Pentagon deals between 1998 and 2003. (See related report, "The Sincerest Form of Flattery.")

From its founding in 1987, the Carlyle Group has pioneered investing in the defense and national security markets, and through its takeover of companies with billions of dollars in defense contracts became one of the U.S. military's top vendors, ranking among better known defense firms like Lockheed Martin, Boeing Co., Raytheon Co., Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics.

Unlike those firms, however, the Carlyle Group itself is not a manufacturer. It offers no services directly to the Pentagon, and has no defense contracts. Rather, it manages investments—some $18.4 billion from 600 individuals and entities in 55 countries, according to its Web site. The firm's business is making money for these investors, the vast majority of whose identities are not disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission or other government bodies.

Though Carlyle itself has won no contracts, the companies it has owned or controlled have done billions of dollars worth of business with the Pentagon. The Carlyle unit that brought in the largest share—$5.8 billion—was United Defense Inc., which manufactures combat vehicles, artillery, naval guns, missile launchers and precision munitions. United Defense also owns the country's largest non-nuclear ship repair, modernization, overhaul and conversion company, United States Marine Repair Inc. Its most famous product may well be the Bradley fighting vehicle. United Defense brought in more than 60 percent of Carlyle's defense business.

Carlyle took United Defense public in 2001; by April 2004 it had sold all its shares in the company.

Following the extraordinary success of the Washington-based Carlyle Group, which has built a private equity empire that's earned billions for its investors, a number of firms have lined up rosters of former government officials and high ranking military officers as they pursue companies that are in the national security business.

Carlyle, which ranked as the ninth largest Pentagon contractor from 1998 to 2003, has made billions of dollars by investing in the defense sector. A team of high-powered former Washington insiders, including Frank Carlucci, who served as secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, and James Baker, who served as George H. W. Bush's secretary of state, led its pursuit of defense deals. (See related report, "Investing in War.")

More than a half dozen companies are now following in the footsteps of Carlyle by signing up former high-ranking government and military officials as they try to make inroads into the Pentagon and the newly-created Homeland Security contracting business.

The blue-chip political talent these private equity firms have lured include five of the past nine defense secretaries, two secretaries of state, two national security chiefs, two CIA directors and dozens of distinguished retired military officials.