GAO pans Army for how ammo's destroyed

WASHINGTON — Congressional researchers complain that the Army now uses only 6 percent of capacity at its depots, such as Tooele Army Depot, to destroy excess conventional ammunition — and pays contractors millions to do the work instead.

Worse, the U.S. General Accounting Office (a research arm of Congress) said Friday it found that contractors sometimes subcontract back that destruction work to the Army's own depots anyway — so the Army essentially pays a private contractor to oversee the Army's own work.

In one instance, a commercial firm — which the Army paid $563 per piece of munition to destroy 1,848 items — "then contracted some of the work to a government facility for about $141 per item," wasting about $780,000 overall, the GAO said.

The GAO wrote to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday urging him to stop the practice of reserving at least half of such ammunition destruction for private firms. The Pentagon, in a written response, agreed to change.

The GAO, however, noted it first pointed out the problem three years ago. A later Army study later also pointed it out, but no changes occurred. Glenn F. Lamartin, director of Defense Systems in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, wrote that change will happen now.

The GAO said the Army first started reserving half of its ammunition destruction for contractors to encourage "environmentally friendly" work by companies that use "resource, recovery and recycling processes."

The GAO said many Army depots have such capabilities also — but they are underused.

For example, it said it figured the Tooele Army Depot could destroy 7,000 tons of excess ammunition each year using such environmentally friendly processes — but absolutely no such work is planned there during fiscal 2004.

The GAO said it found 13 Army depots and centers nationally had the ability to destroy up to 156,600 tons of excess ammunition a year — but plans in 2004 call for only 9,710 tons of destruction work at four depots.

The GAO said an earlier study in 2001 figured the Army could save $100 million between 2002 and 2011 if it made optimal use of "environmentally friendly" facilities at its bases, and used contractors only for types of munitions that depots could not handle themselves easily.

The need for conventional arms was drastically reduced at the end of the Cold War. By 1993, the Army reported a backlog of 354,000 tons of excess munitions — which has since increased to 381,000 tons at the end of 2003, the GAO said.

It said the Pentagon hopes to decrease the stockpile of excess conventional ammunition to 100,000 tons and 30,000 missiles in future years, which it considers a manageable level.

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