WASHINGTON — A California manufacturer of body armor is under criminal investigation for possibly making false claims, Pentagon officials said Wednesday, but lawmakers are pressing for an independent test to determine whether the company's protective vests are better than the ones that American troops in Iraq are wearing.
Air Force investigators said they'd been probing Pinnacle Armor Inc. of Fresno, Calif., for a year, looking into allegations that the company lied about having its vests certified as safe. Pinnacle made the claim nine months before it received the federal certification, they said.
"In my opinion, this is a fraudulent claim, and it is my hope that the investigation results in the appropriate consequences," Army Lt. Gen. N. Ross Thompson III told the House Armed Services Committee.
Lawmakers from both parties accused Pinnacle's president, Murray Neal, of hyping his product, exploiting the fears of soldiers' families, misleading Congress and impugning the Army's integrity.
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Neal said his company's Dragon Skin body armor was superior to the Interceptor brand the Pentagon was buying now. It's a big market: The Army and Marine Corps need 178,000 body armor systems for service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some soldiers and Marines have been paying upward of $5,000 to equip themselves with Dragon Skin.
"The bottom line," Neal said, "is that Dragon Skin has been verified as the best body armor in the world."
Unlike the solid Interceptor vests, Dragon Skin uses overlapping silver dollar-sized discs. The system is popular with police SWAT teams, Secret Service agents and others.
Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee want the Government Accountability Office to oversee body armor tests. Until now, the Pentagon has tested equipment against certain standards, but not side by side.
