Panel Probing Northrop Lists Nine Reforms

The House Government Operations Committee, completing a final investigative report on a long series of problems at Northrop, on Monday recommended nine reforms of the defense procurement system.

The committee held three hearings last fall, focusing on falsification of testing results on the cruise missile and Harrier jet components at Northrop. The hearings also looked into the firm’s controversial investments in a Korean hotel project.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, lashed out at the Los Angeles aerospace firm Monday, saying the nation “cannot afford to trust a company with this record of criminality and continuing irresponsibility.”

A Northrop spokesman said the report “appears to be a repeat of issues raised at the hearings and in an interim report issued two weeks ago.” The firm noted that it fired the employees involved in the false testing and closed the plant where it occurred.

The firm also shared with the Justice Department its internal investigation of the matter, he said.

Among the new information disclosed in the report was that Northrop’s precision products division in Norwood, Mass., received 161 subcontracts while it was supposed to be suspended by the government for fraud in the component testing. Northrop pleaded guilty last year to related criminal charges.

Conyers’ committee recommended that the military’s suspension policy be altered to prevent a suspended operation from receiving contracts or subcontracts. It also suggested that the government:

* Formulate a policy of having second production sources for critical components;

* Limit the military from reducing technical specifications to make defective products acceptable;

* Strengthen requirements for the supervision of subcontractors;

* Improve the sharing of information between the Justice Department and other federal agencies;

* Limit the use of sealed plea agreements in fraud cases;

* Set up requirements for training and supervising contractor employees;

* Promptly assure the safety of the Harrier jet, which uses a Northrop system to stabilize its flight and has a mishap rate three times higher than any other tactical aircraft, and

* Correct the cruise missile components that Northrop produced.