One DOD W-2 used the SSN of a worker who died in 1942. In another case, a man dishonorably discharged from the Army used his son's SSN to re-enlist.

 In recommending that SSA always notify DOD when DOD files bad W-2s, the report said: "Since the DOD components employ individuals who are in positions of trust and who may have access to national security information, it is essential that they are notified about the wage reporting problems."

 To be fair, DOD filed bad W-2s at a much lower rate than the private-sector companies that SSA has determined rank among the nation's top 100 worst filers of bad W-2s. An OIG report I discussed in this space last week listed an unnamed Illinois company as the No. 1 filer of bad W-2s between 1997 and 2001. That company filed 131,991 bad W-2s, which equaled 11.68 percent of all W-2s it filed in that period. DOD's 6,400 bad W-2s comprised only about 0.024 percent of the approximately 26 million it filed from 1997 to 2002.

 Nonetheless, allowing hundreds, or even thousands, of unknown workers to gain employment at a government agency charged with defending the nation in a war against terrorists is unacceptable.

 The courageous Americans who put their lives at risk to serve our nation deserve to know that our elected officials, and the political appointees they put in place, have taken every step possible to determine the true identity of all the military personnel they serve with and all the civilian Defense employees whose job it is to serve them.

 With a little diligence, Defense and the Coast Guard could have eliminated their bad W-2s. SSA provides an Employer Verification Service that will check the validity of any new employee's SSN for any employer. The service will verify up to five SSNs by phone, 50 by letter, and an unlimited number for employers who register with the agency and provide magnetic tapes of SSNs needing verification.

 The Air Force at some point stopped using the service. The Coast Guard does not appear to have ever registered for it. "(W)e could not find evidence that the Air Force or Coast Guard were verifying their employees' names and SSNs," said the report.

 Following its inspector general's recommendation, SSA "initiated a process with each (services') DFAS (Defense Finance and Accounting Service) representative to investigate their ESF items."

 So far, attention to this does not appear to have trickled very far up in DOD. Responding by email to my inquiries, DOD spokesperson Lt. Col. Roseann Lynch said: "There is no ongoing IG (inspector general) action related to this. I have also checked with DFAS and the comptroller's office. The response was the same." In a subsequent email, she said: "We have no indication this report has been received by the Department of Defense."

 Hopefully, in the end, the vast majority of DOD's bad W-2s will be attributed to innocuous causes. But right now, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld needs to make certain every single one of them is investigated and accounted for.