Lax Security, Sloppy Paperwork Charged : Report Assails Army for ‘Lost’ Missiles

Lax security and sloppy record-keeping at U.S. Army posts in Europe expose billions of dollars worth of military supplies, including some of the nation’s most sophisticated weapons, to theft by terrorist groups or diversion for profit, a congressional study released Wednesday warned.

At one post in West Germany, it took supply officers almost a year to locate 24 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles in their inventory after the Army requested them for training exercises elsewhere. At another post, an Army battalion lost a Chaparral surface-to-air missile. Elsewhere, a military guard station was found unmanned with a note stuck to the door reading, “Be back in 5 minutes.”

The report listed numerous other security breaches that left Stinger, Dragon and TOW missiles, as well as hand grenades and ammunition, vulnerable to theft or sabotage.

“There is simply no excuse for the kind of laxity that has occurred,” said Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who initiated the investigation that led to the report. “The Army’s known for some time that the missiles are not properly secured. And yet they have failed to take corrective steps, which is unconscionable.

“The missiles are extremely dangerous weapons and in the hands of terrorists would pose serious national security problems.”

Pentagon Takes Issue

A Pentagon spokesman took issue with Wilson’s comments and the report.

“The Army had procedures to account for the missiles that were adequate to the purpose. We were not missing any missiles,” the spokesman said. He acknowledged, however, that the Army “has taken actions to improve those procedures to make them better.”

The report, prepared by the General Accounting Office, Congress’ investigative unit, is part of a continuing series of audits of the military supply system.

So far, government investigators have said, the evidence indicates that the military network that stores $170 billion worth of munitions and easily pilferable items such as tires, batteries and electronic gear is “leaking like a sieve.”

Wednesday’s report charged that “the problems of inaccurate inventories, unknown causes of the inaccuracies and poor physical security all contribute to a situation where the Army is unnecessarily vulnerable to theft, diversion or misappropriation of its inventory supplies.”

Not ‘Fully Effective’

It said that many of the problems had previously been pointed out to top Army officials, but asserted that corrective actions obviously have not been “fully effective.”

The security of Stinger missiles is particularly sensitive because they are the Army’s most effective portable anti-aircraft missiles, and the Pentagon has tried to prevent their falling into unfriendly hands. A shipment of Stingers en route to the Afghan rebels was reportedly hijacked by Iran last spring, and batteries and other equipment used in Stinger launches were found on a disabled Iranian patrol boat in the Persian Gulf.

Dick Helmer, the GAO official supervising the audit program, said the Army claims that its records for all of its inventory are accurate nearly 90% of the time. But Helmer’s analysis of the Army’s own figures found that the Army’s records of what it has on hand, where it came from and what it is worth are accurate less than half the time.

“There are a lot of serious management problems,” Helmer said. “You’re just opening yourself up to fraud, waste and abuse.”

Loss of Technology

The problems potentially could lead to loss of advanced U.S. technology to the Soviet Union and other rival nations, to the United States inadvertently becoming the supply depot for terrorists and to severe problems in supplying troops in the event of a military emergency, government investigators have charged.

“By failing to properly secure the munitions,” Wilson said Wednesday, “the Army is courting disaster.”

Although the most recent report focuses on the Army, forthcoming audits will look at the Air Force, the Navy and the Defense Logistics Agency, which coordinates supply across the services.