Contrary to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office that stated otherwise, the Army insists that the body armor now work by troops is safe and effective. The Oct. 16 GAO report cited flaws in the Army’s testing methods of the armor, called "X Small Arms Protective Inserts," stating that the some of the tests "incorrectly measured the amount of force absorbed by the plate designs." The report acknowledges that Army testers revised their methods once they learned of the error. Those flawed plates are not being used by soldiers in the field, Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, the body-armor program manager, said at a Pentagon news conference the same day the GAO report was released. "We have the best body armor by far," Fuller said, adding that the plates will undergo two more testing sequences later this year. "The challenge we are having with this GAO audit report is they are challenging our processes, and I think what we are really identifying is we have had an evolution of processes and we need to better articulate what we are doing there," Fuller said.
