The report complains that the Air Force officials improperly sought to evade rules that require proof before purchase (of the military version) that it meets required standards. The inspector general says the JCAD Program Office knew the detectors did not do that, based on the manufacturer's own testing, but thought they worked well enough to be of use.

"The JCAD Program Office knew that the system had a high number of false alarms, that it had failed high temperature and humidity environmental tests and needed an additional shade of some kind to shield against solar radiation," the report said.

In short, tests suggested it may not work in battle conditions or in the Iraqi desert.

"The pending Iraqi conflict and widespread concerns about the potential for U.S. warfighters to be exposed to chemical or biological contaminants placed the JCAD Program Office in the difficult position of wanting to be responsive and yet needing to comply with DoD (Defense Department) policy," the report says.

But it adds, that office "should not have agreed" to buy the detectors "before having an independent verification conducted to ensure that the JCAD ChemSentry units perform better than existing equipment."

In February 2003, the Air Force requested another 100 detectors. This time, the Pentagon said it would allow the purchase only if testing, including some planned at Utah's Dugway Proving Ground, proved the JCAD was better than existing detectors.

The tests, finished in March 2003, concluded that the detectors "did not satisfy all JCAD operational requirements and did not add a significant military capability over the fielded units." Among many problems, it was determined that the detectors simply did not perform well enough in identifying when chemical agents were present, the report said.

With that, the report said, no further detectors were bought. The inspector general called for the Air Force to cease using those that it already had. The assistant secretary of Defense for nuclear and chemical and biological defense programs concurred and ordered that the detectors be collected and sent to military testers.

A side story is that the inspector general's office also complains about the affordability of the JCAD program. It notes that original guidelines expected that detectors would cost about $2,000. The 100 that were purchased cost nearly $10,000 each.

Even as production increases and unit prices drop, it said current estimates envision an overall cost of about $4,150 each for the first 37,460 JCAD units.

The inspector general complained that with higher costs, currently projected budgets won't allow buying the 274,876 JCAD units that the military figures it needs over the next few decades, especially because British Aerospace can currently make only 7,300 units a year.

"We estimate that it would take the contractor 37 years to fulfill the government's requirement," the report said.

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com