ARTICLE

April 2003

U.S. Rushes To Upgrade Chem-Bio Gear

Research and development programs remain unfocused, say critics

by Harold Kennedy

If and when U.S. troops come under chemical or biological attack, they will be better prepared than they were during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, military officials said. In the past decade, funding for the Pentagon’s chemical and biological defense program has tripled, rising to almost $1.4 billion in 2003.

As a result, individual protective gear has improved “significantly,” according to Michael A. Parker, who recently was named head of the Army’s new Chemical Materials Agency. Previously, he was deputy commander of the Army’s Soldier Biological and Chemical Command, at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

“Our war fighters in all services have the best individual protective equipment in the world, and it’s going to get even better,” Parker told a congressional panel.

Reporters got a look at some of this equipment—some already deployed and some still in development—during a recent briefing at Battelle’s new Eastern Regional Technology Center, near Aberdeen. Battelle, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, is a non-profit institute that conducts research and testing to help U.S. military services develop clothing and equipment to protect against chemical, biological and radiological hazards. Here are a few of the many kinds of equipment that were on display at Aberdeen:

The joint service lightweight integrated suit technology. The JSLIST, as it is known, is replacing all existing chemical-protection suits throughout the services. Since production began in 1997, more than 1.5 million have been delivered, most of them to the services.

Every service member who is deploying to the Persian Gulf region has been issued at least two of the JSLIST suits, Army Brig. Gen. Steve Reeves, program executive officer for chemical and biological defense, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. The Marines, he said, have three.

The JSLIST suit consists of a top with a built-in hood and separate trousers, explained Robert J. Coughlin, Battelle’s vice president for systems analysis and engineering. It comes with multipurpose overboots and protective gloves. At 9.6 pounds, the JSLIST is more than a pound lighter than older versions. It can be worn 24 hours a day for 45 days, compared to 30 days for its predecessors. It also can be laundered six times, unlike older suits, which cannot be washed at all.

Still a factor for the JSLIST suits, as was for earlier versions, is heat stress, particularly as the weather in Iraq warms up. During a recent news briefing on the Army’s Technical Escort Unit, a member of the unit, wearing a JSLIST outfit, fainted under hot television lights.

The joint service general purpose mask. The JSGPM is being developed to replace the decade-old M40/M22 series of gas masks being used by Army and Marine ground troops and combat vehicle crews and the MCU-2/P series employed by the Navy and Air Force. Lighter and less bulky, it is designed to improve the wearer’s ability to see and breathe. It features a single, wide eyepiece, rather than two smaller eyepieces.

The JSGPM, however, won’t be fielded until 2006, leaving U.S. troops facing Iraq with the M40/42 and MCU2/P series. But those masks are “big improvements” over their predecessors, said Coughlin.

The M40 mask features an externally mounted air filter canister, making it simpler to replace, Coughlin explained. Also, it can be mounted on either the left or right side of the mask, making it easier for soldiers to shoot, whether they are right or left-handed.

“They’ve come a long way from the equipment that they used when I was in the Army,” Coughlin said.

The joint chemical agent detector. The pocket-sized JCAD is small enough to be handheld, worn in a pouch or posted in a network in buildings or around base perimeters. It also can be installed in military ground vehicles, aircraft or ships.

JCAD is designed to detect, identify and quantify nerve, blister, blood agents and toxic industrial chemicals at low levels to allow sufficient time for protective measures to be taken. It is intended to replace all of the chemical point-detection systems now being used by the services, including the chemical agent monitor and the improved chemical agent monitor.

JCAD’s prime contractor, BAE Systems, of Austin, Texas, is scheduled to begin low-rate initial production later this year. The Defense Department plans to buy more than 257,000 of the detectors over the next five years.

Meanwhile, the ICAM is still in production. In 2002, its manufacturer, General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products, in Burlington, Vt., received a $6.3 million order to continue making the devices through the end of this year.

Since the ICAM was introduced in 1995, more than 13,000 units have been produced. The ICAM is three times more reliable, 10 times easier to start and less expensive to maintain than the original CAM, according to the Army’s NBC defense program manager’s office.

The joint biological point detection system. JBPDS is the first biological warfare agent-detection program for all of the services. It is similar to the humvee-mounted biological integrated detection systems that were deployed around the Pentagon after the 2001 terrorist attacks. In addition to ground vehicles, JBPDS can be installed in ships, aircraft and buildings to provide biological detection and warning to all service personnel. It is portable and fully automated. JBPDS also is fielded at “high-value military sites,” Johnson-Winegar told a Senate hearing.

Current versions of JBPDS will identify 10 biological warfare agents simultaneously in less than 20 minutes. Later editions will be able to recognize up to 26 agents at the same time.

JBPDS can operate remotely up to five kilometers by either hardwire or radio modem. A single command center can operate networks of as many as 30 JBPDS systems. Each JBPDS includes both global positioning and meteorological capabilities.

The joint warning and reporting network, JWARN still is in development. If it works as planned, it will be is a system of software and hardware that collects, analyzes, identifies, locates and disseminates information on nuclear, biological and chemical threats.

Despite all of the attempts to improve military capabilities, “seemingly intractable problems still plague the effort to defend against chemical and biological attack,” said U.S. Rep. Chistopher Shays, chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security. “Research and development remains unfocused, and in some cases, duplicative. Procurements are behind schedule.”

Counting the 1.5 million JSLIST suits and older versions, the Defense Department has a total of 4.5 million CB protective suits, according to a General Accounting Office to Shays’ subcommittee. In 2000, the department directed military units and supply centers to locate 778,924 defective suits. “As of July 2002,” the GAO report said, “as many as 250,000 of these suits remained unaccounted for.”

In an interview with CBS 60 Minutes, Anna Johnson-Winegar, deputy assistant secretary for chemical and biological defense, acknowledged the GAO report, adding: “I can tell you with complete confidence that we have made every effort reasonably possible to identify the location of those defective suits, and they have been either returned or destroyed.”

The fact is, she said, “we have made a concentrated effort, over the last several months, to ensure that each and every individual is provided with adequate protection.

“We have the new, improved protective gear that is provided to every service member prior to deployment. We have made significant improvements in our detector capability, so that we know when a chemical or biological agent is in the area.”

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