The General Accounting Office, a research arm of the US Congress, estimated the current inventory at about five million suits against a requirement for some seven million suits in a scenario where US forces are engaged in two major combat operations.

"This requirement will likely increase to include counterterrorism, force protection and homeland defense contingencies," it said in a summary of its findings.

It said the actual size of the shortage was difficult to calculate because the Pentagon's assumptions about wartime consumption rates are outdated and the Defense Department's accounting systems are unable to provide an accurate tally of its inventory of protective suits.

"Despite recent increases in new suit production, other factors -- such as the ongoing expiration of older suits and the consumption of suits during Operation Iraqi Freedom -- reduced the available supply of suits, thereby widening the difference between the number of suits required and those on hand," the GAO said.

The report warned of the risk of not being able to meet wartime needs because of unpredictable annual funding for suits, reliance on single source foreign suppliers, doubts about their ability to surge production in a crisis, and the absence of a stockpile of critical suit components.

WAR.WIRE