Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

May 24, 2000

The Persian Gulf War taught important lessons about the effective use of our military strength, and about weaknesses in our chemical and biological (CB) defenses. Poor detection capability, bulky protective clothing, and limited supplies of medicines and decontaminants, among other problems, increased the vulnerability of U.S. forces to unconventional attack.

Since then, Congress and the Department of Defense (DoD) have sought to improve the Chemical and Biological Defense Program (CBDP) by integrating previously disparate research, development and acquisition efforts into a coordinated, joint service approach. CBDP spending, $791 million this fiscal year, has more than doubled since 1996.

In the most recent Annual Report to Congress, the Chemical and Biological Defense Program claims success in meeting statutory mandates to consolidate program management, expand program jointness among the service branches and improve force protection against immediate and future CB threats.

But according to the General Accounting Office (GAO), the program may be mistaking motion for progress. The CBDP has not yet fully complied with one important congressional mandate: to measure program performance in terms of real outcomes rather than mere activities. The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) requires adherence to an overall strategic plan, explicit program goals and measurable performance benchmarks. Despite an August 1999 GAO recommendation to complete a Results Act-compliant performance plan, the March 2000 CBDP Annual Report contains little more than the relabeling of last year's goals and the promise of a more complete effort next year.

The Results Act is more than an academic or civics exercise. According to DoD, the chemical and biological threat to U.S. forces is very real. Those charged to design, procure and deploy defensive capabilities to meet that threat should know, and be able to demonstrate, their efforts are working. Yet, GAO concludes, "In the absence of explicit and measurable goals, it is difficult to assess the impact of the Program on warfighters' ability to survive, fight and win in a chemical and biological environment."

Without those performance measures, the program risks losing sight of its real objectives as jointness gives way to service-specific demands and the competing priorities of a very complex management and oversight bureaucracy dilute program focus. By ignoring, delaying or claiming exemption from Results Acts requirements, the program risks settling for marginal improvements to existing technologies when those on the battlefield need much more.

This Subcommittee spent the past year looking at one aspect of current chemical and biological defense strategy, the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program. Today, we begin an examination of the broader force protection effort encompassing detection, agent identification, warning, individual protection, collective protection and decontamination. On June 21, we plan to look specifically at current inventory controls, training protocols, and service life of current individual protective clothing and masks.

We appreciate the cooperation of all our witnesses in this effort, and we look forward to their testimony.