The U.S. Army and NBC News are locked in a war of words overthe network’s assertion that it, through testing, has found a protective vest superior to the one worn by tens of thousands of soldiers.
Army generals accuse “Dateline NBC” of sponsoring a flawed ballistics test at a German lab where, with much fanfare for TV viewers, it had bullets fired into Pinnacle Armor Inc.’s Dragon Skin flexible plated vest.
NBC counters that its Sunday night segment last month is forcing the Army to re-evaluate its vest, called Interceptor.
Since the broadcast, the Army has gone into full battle mode to soothe worried soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who are required to wear exclusively Interceptor armor jackets. The service says the Interceptor tested by NBC in comparison with the Dragon Skin armor did not come from a company certified by the Army and thus is not in a batch approved for combat.
“It created needless worry among our men and women in uniform and their families,” Lt. Gen. Ross Thompson III of the Army Acquisition Corps told the House Armed Services Committee last week. “It is a most unfortunate situation and, in my view, brings NBC’s credibility into serious question.”
Nonetheless, committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., indicated that a new test may be needed to clear the air. NBC viewed the hearing as a victory.
“NBC News was encouraged to hear that prominent members of the House Armed Services Committee have joined their Senate colleagues in calling for independent side-by-side testing and the focus of our reports,” Jenny Tartikoff, spokesman for “Dateline,” told The Examiner. “That was the same conclusion reached by those experts who observed NBC’s independent testing.”
The Army says there were other problems in the NBC test. The Dragon Skin was laid flat while rounds were fired. The Army requires body armor to be tested curved around a clay figure.
The Army also says NBC used a less powerful round than the onethe military used to test, and flunk, Dragon Skin in 2006.
In backing Pinnacle, NBC is behind a firm that is under investigation by the Air Force. The Air Force bought 590 Dragon Skins based on Pinnacle’s assurance the vest had been certified by the Justice Department in 2005. The Air Force said it later found out the claim was false and began a probe
Dragon Skin also flunked Air Force ballistics tests after the discrepancy was discovered.
