For example, the contractor running a destruction plant in Pine Bluff, Ark., received 87 percent of available award fees for four years, despite continuing, significant delays.

"One delay extended the originally scheduled April 2004 start of operations date to February 2005, because the contractor wasn't able to hire a sufficient work force," auditors wrote.

Similarly, they complained that contractors were sometimes rewarded for environmental compliance when they did not meet the required goals.

For Tooele to receive such bonuses, it was supposed to achieve a numerical rating of 61 or above for environmental compliance in 2002 and 70 or above in 2003.

However, it received only "ratings of 38.96 and 65 respectively, yet still earned an award fee above the base fee," the report said.

"By not withholding award fees from contractors who didn't control costs and schedules" or perform well environmentally, the Army "may have signaled that they didn't view cost and schedule containment as a top priority," the auditors noted.

Inspectors complained that while reasons for delays and overruns were generally known, the Army "didn't fully ascertain, investigate or report the likelihood that similar delays and increases would recur" — making budgets and schedules shaky.

Auditors said Tooele expected to require only four months to change over from processing arms filled with nerve agent GB to those filled with VX. But it actually took more than a year.

"Yet site managers continued to report an estimated five-month time frame to complete their next agent changeover from VX to mustard agent," the auditors complained, saying Tooele should have expected it to take longer.

Worse, the report said, managers at other facilities "didn't adjust their agent changeover schedules to incorporate the actual experience gained at Tooele." Inspectors complained the Army never asked contractors to explain why they didn't adjust schedules and cost estimates.

They added that because no state-based facility "has completed an agent changeover within schedule ... managers should direct all facility managers to reassess current changeover schedules," the report said.

Inspectors also complained that the Army never held contractors responsible for delays or cost overruns that were their fault, and often failed to investigate them well.

They complained official reports used only vague wording to explain overruns. For example, to explain why operations at Pine Bluff cost $1.6 million more than expected in one period, an Army report said merely that it was from the "impact of using additional resources" without giving details. That also made it more likely that problems could recur.