DOD Excess Property: Control Breakdowns Present Significant	 
Security Risk and Continuing Waste and Inefficiency (25-JUL-06,  
GAO-06-981T).							 
                                                                 
In light of GAO's past three testimonies and two reports on	 
problems with controls over excess DOD property, GAO was asked to
perform follow-up investigations to determine if (1) unauthorized
parties could obtain sensitive excess military equipment that	 
requires demilitarization (destruction) when no longer needed by 
DOD and (2) system and process improvements are adequate to	 
prevent sales of new, unused excess items that DOD continues to  
buy or that are in demand by the military services.		 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-06-981T					        
    ACCNO:   A57420						        
  TITLE:     DOD Excess Property: Control Breakdowns Present	      
Significant Security Risk and Continuing Waste and Inefficiency  
     DATE:   07/25/2006 
  SUBJECT:   Defense cost control				 
	     Internal controls					 
	     Inventory control					 
	     Military materiel					 
	     Program abuses					 
	     Security assessments				 
	     Surplus property					 
	     F-14 Aircraft					 
	     Tomcat Aircraft					 
	     Walleye Guided Bomb				 

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GAO-06-981T

     

     * Summary
     * Undercover Acquisitions of Sensitive Excess Military Items I
          * Sensitive Excess Military Items Purchased at DOD Excess Prop
          * Sensitive Military Items Obtained through Inside Penetration
     * Waste Associated with Sales of A-Condition Excess Items that
     * Status of DOD Corrective Actions
     * Concluding Remarks
     * Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments
          * Order by Mail or Phone

Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and
International Relations, Committee on Government Reform, House of
Representatives

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

For Release on Delivery Expected at 2:00 p.m. EDT

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

DOD EXCESS PROPERTY

Control Breakdowns Present Significant Security Risk and Continuing Waste
and Inefficiency

Statement of Gregory D. Kutz, Managing Director Forensic Audits and
Special Investigations

John P. Ryan, Assistant Director Forensic Audits and Special
Investigations

GAO-06-981T

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss our recent investigation of
Department of Defense (DOD) excess property controls. This testimony is
the fourth in a series of testimonies and reports to this Subcommittee,1
detailing serious breakdowns in management processes, systems, and
controls that have resulted in lost and missing property and substantial
waste and inefficiency in DOD's excess property reutilization program. Our
June 2002 testimony and our November 2003 report documented instances
where DOD sold to the public items such as Joint Service Lightweight
Integrated Suit Technology (JSLIST)2 and other chemical and biological
protective suits and related gear that should have been restricted to
DOD-use only. Our November 2003 report also identified several examples to
show that at the same time DOD excessed biological equipment items in good
or excellent condition and sold many of them to the public for pennies on
the dollar, it was purchasing the same or similar items. Our May 2005
report stated that DOD reported $466 million in lost, damaged, and missing
excess property from fiscal years 2002 through 2004, including property
with demilitarization restrictions,3 such as chemical and biological
protective suits, body armor, and guided missile warheads. Some of the
missing restricted items had been improperly sold to the public. Further,
our May 2005 report noted that during fiscal years 2002 and 2003, the
military services needlessly spent at least $400 million to purchase new
items instead of reusing identical excess items in new and unused
condition (A-condition). As a result, the new, unused excess items were
sold for pennies on the dollar while the military services paid the full
acquisition price to order these items from Defense Logistics Agency (DLA)
supply depots.

1 GAO, DOD Excess Property: Management Control Breakdowns Result in
Substantial Waste and Inefficiency, GAO-05-277 (Washington, D.C.: May 13,
2005) and GAO-05-723T (Washington, D.C.: June 8, 2005); DOD Excess
Property: Risk Assessment Needed on Public Sales of Equipment That Could
Be Used to Make Biological Agents, GAO-04-81TNI (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 7,
2003) and GAO-04-15NI (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 19, 2003); and DOD
Management: Examples of Inefficient and Ineffective Business Processes,
GAO-02-873T (Washington, D.C.: June 25, 2002).

2 JSLIST is a universal, lightweight, two-piece garment (coat and
trousers) that when combined with footwear, gloves, and a protective mask
and breathing device, forms the warfighter's protective ensemble. The
ensemble is to provide maximum protection to the warfighter against
chemical and biological contaminants without negatively affecting the
ability to perform mission tasks. JSLIST is the current model protective
suit used by the military services.

3 DOD-4160.21-M-1, Defense Demilitarization Manual (1995), contains DOD
policy related to controls over items with significant military technology
application.

Our recent investigative tests of controls over sensitive excess military
equipment and technology items that require demilitarization focused on
determining whether (1) DOD was improperly selling these items to the
public4 and (2) excess property warehouse facilities had adequate security
to prevent unauthorized parties from obtaining excess military items with
demilitarization restrictions. Our investigative tests of controls for
preventing liquidation sales of new, unused excess items that DOD is
continuing to buy or that are in demand by the military services focused
on whether these items were continuing to be sold to the public. We used
publicly available information to develop undercover identities and
techniques used in our investigations. We conducted our investigations
from November 2005 through June 2006 in accordance with quality standards
for investigators as set forth by the President's Council on Integrity and
Efficiency.

Today, we will summarize the results of our recent work with respect to
whether (1) unauthorized parties could obtain sensitive excess military
equipment that requires demilitarization when no longer needed by DOD and
(2) systems and process improvements are adequate to prevent liquidation
sales of A-condition items that DOD is continuing to buy or that are in
demand by the military services. In addition, we will highlight the status
of DOD corrective actions on the recommendations in our May 2005 report.
The details of our work are included in our investigative report, which
the Subcommittee is releasing today.5

                                    Summary

Posing as private citizens to disguise our identity, our investigators
identified and purchased numerous sensitive excess DOD military technology
items that should have been demilitarized instead of being sold to the
public. Sensitive excess military equipment we purchased at DOD excess
property liquidation sales auctions included ceramic body armor inserts
currently used by deployed troops, a time selector unit used to ensure the
accuracy of computer-based equipment, such as global positioning systems
and system-level clocks, a universal frequency counter used to ensure that
the frequency of communication gear is running at the expected rate, two
guided missile radar test sets, at least 12 digital microcircuits used in
F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft, and numerous other sensitive electronic
parts. We were able to purchase these items because controls broke down at
virtually every step in the excess property turn-in and disposal process.
Also, in instances where DOD required an End-Use Certificate (EUC)6 as a
condition of sale, our undercover investigator was able to successfully
defeat the screening process by submitting bogus documentation and
providing plausible explanations for discrepancies in his documentation.

4 In concert with the federal government's E-government policy to use
information technology (IT) investments to deliver services and
information to citizens electronically, DOD's excess property liquidation
sales are conducted over the Internet. OMB, Implementation Guidance for
the E-Government Act of 2002, M-03-18, at att. A, P: B, 1 (Aug. 1, 2003).

5 GAO, DOD Excess Property: Control Breakdowns Present Significant
Security Risk and Continuing Waste and Inefficiency, GAO-06-943
(Washington, D.C.: July 25, 2006).

In addition, posing as DOD contractor employees7 our undercover
investigators were able to easily penetrate security at two separate
locations in June 2006 and obtain at no cost directly from excess
inventory warehouses, numerous sensitive military equipment items valued
at about $1.1 million that should not have been released outside of DOD.
The items we obtained included two launcher mounts for shoulder-fired
guided missiles, several types of body armor, a digital signal converter
used in naval electronic surveillance, an all-band antenna used to track
aircraft, six circuit cards used in computerized Navy systems, and several
other items in use by the military services. The body armor could be used
in terrorist or other criminal activity. Many of the other military items
have weapons applications that also would be useful to terrorists. Our
undercover investigators were able to obtain these items because Defense
Reutilization and Marketing Office (DRMO)8 personnel did not confirm their
identity and authorization to requisition excess DOD property items. The
DRMO personnel even helped our undercover investigators load the items
into our van.

6 An EUC is a form used by DOD to document the intended destination and
disposition of sensitive, controlled items released from the department.

7 Under DOD's excess property reutilization program, DOD contractors are
treated the same as DOD units and are not charged for excess property
items they requisition for reuse.

8 DRMOs are excess property warehouses operated by the Defense
Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS), which is the agency within DLA
charged with managing DOD's excess property disposal system.

We also made several undercover purchases of new, unused A-condition
excess DOD items, including wet-weather parkas, cold-weather desert
camouflage parkas, a portable field x-ray processing enclosure, high-
security locks used to secure the back bay of logistics trucks, a gasoline
engine, and a refrigerant recovery system used for servicing automotive
vehicles. The items we purchased at DOD liquidation sales were being
ordered from supply inventory by military units at or near the time of our
purchases and for one supply depot stocked item-the portable x-ray
enclosure-no items were in stock when we made our purchase. At the time of
our purchase, DOD's liquidation contractor sold 40 of these x-ray
enclosures with a total reported acquisition cost of $289,400 for a
liquidation sales price of $2,914-about a penny on the dollar. In another
example, we purchased a gasoline engine in March 2006 for $355. The Marine
Corps ordered 4 of these gas engines from DLA supply inventory in June
2006 and paid $3,119 each for them. At the time of our undercover
purchase, 20 identical gasoline engines with a reported acquisition cost
of $62,380 were sold to the public for a total liquidation sales price of
$6,221. Our investigation demonstrated that the problems we reported on in
May 2005 have not been fully resolved and there is continuing waste and
inefficiency in DOD's excess property reutilization program.

We provided a detailed corrective action briefing to DOD on June 28, 2006.
DOD managers told us they shared our concern about the breakdowns in
security controls that allowed sensitive military items requiring
demilitarization to be sold to the public. They asked us for pertinent
documentation obtained during our investigations to support their
follow-up inquiries and corrective action plans. We provided this
information on June 30, 2006, along with documentation to show that the
military services were still ordering and using the excess A-condition
items that we purchased. In addition, we provided a draft of our
investigative report to DOD for comment on July 10, 2006. In commenting on
our draft report, DOD stated that given the time allotted to comment,the
department was not able to perform a detailed review and has no comments
at this time. DOD also stated that it continues to implement changes to
procedures based on our May 2005 report.9

9 GAO-05-277 .

 Undercover Acquisitions of Sensitive Excess Military Items Identifies National
                                 Security Risk

Posing as private citizens, our undercover investigators purchased several
sensitive excess military equipment items that were improperly sold to the
public at DOD liquidation sales. These items included three ceramic body
armor inserts identified as small arms protective inserts (SAPI), which
are the ceramic inserts currently in demand by soldiers in Iraq and
Afghanistan; a time selector unit used to ensure the accuracy of
computer-based equipment, such as global positioning systems and
system-level clocks; 12 digital microcircuits used in F-14 Tomcat fighter
aircraft; guided missile radar test sets used to check the operation of
the data link antenna on the Navy's Walleye (AGM-62) air-to-ground guided
missile; and numerous other electronic items. In instances where DOD
required an EUC as a condition of sale, our undercover investigator was
able to successfully defeat the screening process by submitting bogus
documentation and providing plausible explanations for discrepancies in
his documentation. In addition, we identified at least 79 buyers for 216
sales transactions involving 2,669 sensitive military items that DOD's
liquidation contractor sold to the public between November 2005 and June
2006. We are referring information on these sales to the appropriate
federal law enforcement agencies for further investigation.

Our investigators also posed as DOD contractor employees, entered DRMOs in
two east coast states, and obtained several other items that are currently
in use by the military services. DRMO personnel even helped us load the
items into our van. These items included two launcher mounts for
shoulder-fired guided missiles, an all-band antenna used to track
aircraft, 16 body armor vests, body armor throat and groin protectors, six
circuit card assemblies used in computerized Navy systems, and two Palm V
personal data assistant (PDA) organizers.

Sensitive Excess Military Items Purchased at DOD Excess Property Liquidation
Sales

Using a fictitious identity as a private citizen, our undercover
investigator applied for and received an account with DOD's liquidation
sales contractor. Our investigator was then able to purchase several
sensitive excess military items noted above that were being improperly
sold to the public. During our undercover purchases, our investigator
engaged in numerous conversations with liquidation sales contractor staff
during warehouse inspections of items advertised for sale and with DRMS
and DLA's Criminal Investigative Activity (DCIA) staff during the
processing of our EUCs. On one occasion our undercover investigator was
told by a DCIA official that information provided on his EUC application
had no match to official data and that he had no credit history. Our
investigator responded with a plausible story and submitted a bogus
utility bill to confirm his mailing address. Following these screening
procedures, the EUC was approved by DCIA and our undercover investigator
was able to purchase our targeted excess military items. Once our initial
EUC was approved, our subsequent EUC applications were approved based on
the information on file. Although the sensitive military items that we
purchased had a reported acquisition cost of $461,427, we paid a
liquidation sales price of $914 for them-less than a penny on the dollar.

We observed numerous sales of additional excess sensitive military items
that were improperly advertised for sale or sold to the public, including
fire control components for weapon systems, body armor, and weapon system
components. The demilitarization codes for these items required either key
point or total destruction rather than disposal through public sale.
Although we placed bids to purchase some of these items, we lost to higher
bidders. We identified at least 79 buyers for 216 public liquidation sales
transactions involving 2,669 sensitive military items. On July 13, 2006,
we briefed federal law enforcement and intelligence officials on the
details of our investigation. We are referring public sales of sensitive
military equipment items to the federal law enforcement agencies for
further investigation and recovery of the sensitive military equipment.

During our undercover operations, we also noted 13 advertised sales
events, including 179 items that were subject to demilitarization
controls, where the items were not sold. In 5 of these sales involving 113
sensitive military parts, it appears that DOD or its liquidation sales
contractor caught the error in demilitarization codes and pulled the items
from sale. One of these instances involved an F-14 fin panel assembly that
we had targeted for an undercover purchase. During our undercover
inspection of this item prior to sale, a contractor official told our
investigator that the government was in the process of changing
demilitarization codes on all F-14 parts and it was likely that the fin
panel assembly would be removed from sale. Of the remaining 8 sales lots
containing 66 sensitive military parts, we could not determine whether the
items were not sold because DOD or its contractor caught the
demilitarization coding errors or because minimum bids were not received
during the respective sales events.

Sensitive Military Items Obtained through Inside Penetrations of DRMO Security

Our investigators used publicly available information to develop
fictitious identities as DOD contractor personnel and enter DRMO
warehouses (referred to as DRMO A and DRMO B) in two east coast states on
separate occasions in June 2006, to requisition excess sensitive military
parts and equipment valued at about $1.1 million. Our investigators were
able to search for and identify excess items without supervision. In
addition, DRMO personnel assisted our investigators in locating other
targeted items in the warehouse and loading these items into our van. At
no point during either visit, did DRMO personnel attempt to verify with
the actual contractor that our investigators were, in fact, contractor
employees.

During the undercover penetration at DRMO A, our investigators obtained
numerous sensitive military items that were required to be destroyed when
no longer needed by DOD to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.
These items included two guided missile launcher mounts for shoulder-fired
missiles, six Kevlar body armor fragmentation vests, a digital signal
converter used in naval electronic surveillance, and an all-band antenna
used to track aircraft.

Posing as employees for the same DOD contractor identity used during our
June 2006 penetration at DRMO A, our investigators entered DRMO B a day
later for the purpose of testing security controls at that location. DRMO
officials appeared to be unaware of our security penetration at DRMO A the
previous day. During the DRMO B undercover penetration, our investigators
obtained 10 older technology body armor fragmentation vests, throat and
groin protection armor, six circuit card assemblies used in Navy
computerized systems, and two Palm V personal digital assistants (PDA)
that were certified as having their hard drives removed. Because PDAs do
not have hard drives, after successfully requisitioning them, we asked our
Information Technology (IT) security expert to test them and our expert
confirmed that all sensitive information had been properly removed.10

Shortly after leaving the second DRMO, our investigators received a call
from a contractor official whose employees they had impersonated. The
official had been monitoring his company's requisitions of excess DOD
property and noticed transactions that did not appear to represent
activity by his company. He contacted personnel at DRMO A, obtained the
phone number on our bogus excess property screening letter, and called us.
Upon receiving the call from the contractor official, our lead
investigative agent explained that he was with GAO, and we had performed a
government test.

10 Our IT expert used National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) utilities recommended for forensic analysis to run the tests. See
NIST Pub. 800-72, Guidelines on PDA Forensics (November 2004).

 Waste Associated with Sales of A-Condition Excess Items that Military Services
                      Are Continuing to Use in Operations

Because significant numbers of new, unused A-condition excess items still
being purchased or in use by the military services are being disposed of
through liquidation sales, it was easy for our undercover investigator to
pose as a liquidation sales customer and purchase several of these items
for a fraction of what the military services are paying to obtain these
same items from DLA supply depots. For example, we paid $1,146 for several
wet-weather and cold-weather parkas, a portable field x-ray enclosure,
high-security locks, a gasoline engine that can be used as part of a
generator system or as a compressor, and a refrigerant recovery system
used to service air conditioning systems on automobiles. The military
services would have paid a total acquisition cost of $16,300 for these
items if ordered from supply inventory, plus a charge for processing their
order.11

Several of the items we purchased at liquidation sales events were being
ordered from supply inventory by military units at or near the time of our
purchase, and for one supply depot stocked item-the portable field x-ray
enclosure-no items were in stock at the time we made our undercover
purchase. At the time of our purchase, DOD's liquidation contractor sold
40 of these x-ray enclosures with a total reported acquisition cost of
$289,400 for a liquidation sales price of $2,914-about a penny on the
dollar. We paid a liquidation sales price of $87 for the x-ray enclosure
which had a reported acquisition cost of $7,235. In another example, we
purchased a gasoline engine in March 2006 for $355. The Marine Corps
ordered 4 of these gas engines from DLA supply inventory in June 2006 and
paid $3,119 each for them. At the time of our undercover purchase, 20
identical gasoline engines with a reported acquisition cost of $62,380
were sold to the public for a total liquidation sales price of $6,221,
also about a penny on the dollar.

                        Status of DOD Corrective Actions

In response to recommendations in our May 2005 report,12 DOD has taken a
number of actions to improve systems, processes, and controls over excess
property. Most of these efforts have focused on improving the economy and
efficiency of DOD's excess property reutilization program. However, as
demonstrated by our tests of security controls over sensitive excess
military equipment, DOD does not yet have effective controls in place to
prevent unauthorized parties from obtaining these items. For example,
although DLA and DRMS have emphasized policies that prohibit batch
lotting13 of sensitive military equipment items, we observed many of these
items being sold in batch lots during our investigation and we were able
to purchase several of them. In addition, DLA and DRMS have not ensured
that DRMO personnel and DOD's liquidation sales contractor are verifying
demilitarization codes on excess property turn-in documentation to assure
appropriate disposal actions for items requiring demilitarization.

11 As noted in our May 2005 report, the weighted average cost for
warehousing and shipping all supply items was 20.7 percent in fiscal year
2003.

12 GAO-05-277 .

Further, although DLA and DRMS implemented several initiatives to improve
the overall reutilization rate for excess A-condition items, our analysis
of DRMS data found that the reported reutilization rate as of June 30,
2006, remained the same as we had previously reported-about 12 percent.14
This is primarily because DLA reutilization initiatives are limited to
using available excess A-condition items to fill customer orders and to
maintain established supply inventory retention levels. As a result,
excess A-condition items that are not needed to fill existing orders or
replenish supply inventory are disposed of outside of DOD through
transfers, donations, and public sales, which made it easy for us to
purchase excess new, unused DOD items.

Despite the limited reutilization supply systems approach for
reutilization of A-condition excess items, DLA and DRMS data show that
overall system and process improvements since the Subcommittee's June 2005
hearing have saved $38.1 million through June 2006. According to DLA data,
interim supply system initiatives using the Automated Asset Recoupment
Program, which is part of an old DOD legacy system, achieved reutilization
savings of nearly $2.3 million since July 2005 and Business System
Modernization supply system initiatives implemented in January 2006 as
promised at the Subcommittee's June 2005 hearing, have resulted in
reutilization savings of nearly $1.1 million. In addition, DRMS reported
that excess property marketing initiatives implemented in late March 2006
have resulted in reutilization savings of a little over $34.8 million
through June 2006. These initiatives include marketing techniques using
Web photographs of high-dollar items and e-mail notices to repeat
customers about the availability of A-condition items that they had
previously selected for reutilization.

13 Batch lotting refers to combining one or more items, or a mixed group
of items, on the same turn-in document or sales lot.

14 GAO-05-277 and GAO-05-729T .

                               Concluding Remarks

Our most recent work shows that sensitive military equipment items are
still being improperly released by DOD and sold to the public, posing a
significant national security risk. The sensitive nature of these items
requires particularly stringent internal security controls. Our tests,
which were performed over a short duration, were limited to our
observations, meaning that the problem may likely be more significant than
what we identified. Although we have referred the sales of items
identified during our investigation to federal law enforcement agencies
for follow-up, the solution to this problem is to enforce controls for
preventing improper release of these items outside DOD. Further,
liquidation sales of items that military units are continuing to purchase
at full cost from supply inventory demonstrates continuing waste to the
taxpayer and inefficiency in DOD's excess property reutilization program.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, this concludes my statement. I
would be pleased to answer any questions that you or other members of the
committee may have at this time.

                       Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments

For further information about this testimony, please contact Gregory D.
Kutz at (202) 512-7455 or [email protected] . Major contributors to this
testimony include Mario L. Artesiano, Donald L. Bumgardner, Matthew S.
Brown, Paul R. Desaulniers, Stephen P. Donahue, Lauren S. Fassler, Gayle
L. Fischer, Cinnimon Glozer, Jason Kelly, John Ledford, Barbara C. Lewis,
Richard C. Newbold, John P. Ryan, Lori B. Ryza, Lisa M. Warde, and Emily
C. Wold.

Technical expertise was provided by Keith A. Rhodes, Chief Technologist,
and Harold Lewis, Assistant Director, Information Technology Security,
Applied Research and Methods.

(192221)

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Highlights of GAO-06-981T, testimony before the Subcommittee on National
Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, Committee on
Government Reform, House of Representatives

July 25, 2006

DOD EXCESS PROPERTY

Control Breakdowns Present Significant Security Risk and Continuing Waste
and Inefficiency

In light of GAO's past three testimonies and two reports on problems with
controls over excess DOD property, GAO was asked to perform follow-up
investigations to determine if (1) unauthorized parties could obtain
sensitive excess military equipment that requires demilitarization
(destruction) when no longer needed by DOD and (2) system and process
improvements are adequate to prevent sales of new, unused excess items
that DOD continues to buy or that are in demand by the military services.

What GAO Recommends

GAO briefed DOD management on the results of its follow-up investigation
and provided additional perspectives on ways to resolve the control
breakdowns that resulted in public sales of sensitive excess military
equipment and new, unused excess items that the military services continue
to use. In its comments on GAO's draft report, DOD stated that given the
time allotted to comment, the department was not able to do a detailed
review and has no comments at this time. DOD also commented that it
continues to implement changes to procedures based on GAO's May 2005
report (GAO-05-277).

GAO investigators posing as private citizens purchased several sensitive
military equipment items from DOD's liquidation sales contractor,
indicating that DOD has not enforced security controls for preventing
sensitive excess military equipment from release to the public. GAO
investigators at liquidation sales purchased ceramic body armor inserts
currently used by deployed troops, a cesium technology timing unit with
global positioning capabilities, a universal frequency counter, two guided
missile radar test sets, 12 digital microcircuits used in F-14 fighter
aircraft, and numerous other items. GAO was able to purchase these items
because controls broke down at virtually every step in the excess property
turn-in and disposal process. GAO determined that thousands of military
items that should have been demilitarized (destroyed) were sold to the
public. Further, in June 2006, GAO undercover investigators posing as DOD
contractor employees entered two excess property warehouses and obtained
about $1.1 million in sensitive military equipment items, including two
launcher mounts for shoulder-fired guided missiles, several types of body
armor, a digital signal converter used in naval surveillance, an all-band
antenna used to track aircraft, and six circuit cards used in computerized
Navy systems. At no point during GAO's warehouse security penetration were
its investigators challenged on their identity and authority to obtain DOD
military property. The table below shows examples of sensitive military
equipment obtained during GAO's undercover operations.

Sensitive Military Equipment Obtained during GAO's Undercover Tests

GAO investigators posing as private citizens also bought several new,
unused items currently being purchased or in demand by the military
services from DOD's excess property liquidation sales contractor. Although
military units paid full price for these items when they ordered them from
supply inventory, GAO paid a fraction of this cost to purchase the same
items, demonstrating continuing waste and inefficiency.
*** End of document. ***