BLACK-BERET PROJECT HAS BECOME A FIASCO

Those black berets to be worn by every soldier in the U.S. Army have been nothing but trouble since the plan was first announced.

Black berets have long been a symbol of the Army's elite special-forces units.

But a few months ago Gen. Eric Shinseki, Army chief of staff, thought a nice way to celebrate the Army's birthday on June 14 (also Flag Day) would be to give a black beret to everyone.

Not tan. Not red. Not blue.

Not any color except black, the one sure to set off a firestorm of misunderstanding and professional friction.

Why the general picked this year to create such a hubbub isn't clear. The Army traces its founding to June 14, 1775, under the Continental Congress. But June 14 of this year was special to Shinseki -- so special that suppliers of some 4.7 million berets had to be found. You can't just go buy that many black berets off the shelf.

Using the June 14 date as a deadline, the Pentagon waived the so-called buy-American law and contracted for most of the berets to be produced in Third World countries. One of the contracts was with a British company for more than 600,000 of the berets.

Alas, there were a couple of prickly problems.

First, the British company's factories were either in China or used materials from China. And we all know about the recent dustup between the United States and China over that spy plane. So the Army decreed that no berets of Chinese origin or content would rest atop the heads of any U.S. soldiers. In addition, contracts for another 1.5 million berets in Romania, South Africa and India were canceled because of shoddy workmanship or tardy deliveries.

Right away, it became evident that there wouldn't be enough berets to go around for the June 14 anniversary. Now the Army has decided to implement its black-beret plan piecemeal.

Second, in its haste to get the berets by June 14, the Army wound up paying more for each beret than it would have paid if all the berets had been American-made. OK, just three cents more. But $141,000 is a lot out of $23 million being spent for the berets.

There is a lot of pressure from within the Army's own ranks and certainly from the public and from members of Congress to scrap the black-beret fiasco.

There has been one small victory in all of this: U.S. Sen. Christopher Bond has obtained a commitment from the Pentagon that all future berets will be U.S.-made.

Meanwhile, all of those never-worn Chinese berets will soon be in a surplus store near you.