Call it the Great Canteen Cup Crisis.

Two years ago the Army was running perilously low on canteen cups -- considered a "combat essential" item that must be stocked at high enough levels to outfit all troops in case of emergency mobilization.

To replenish the seriously dwindling supplies of metal cups, which fit around the outside of a canteen like a second skin, the Defense Department put out the message that it was in the market to buy 596,700 new cups. Eleven companies replied and the first contract for half of the cups went to the lowest bidder, an Israeli company, S. Hanany Metal Craft, which said it could produce the cups for $787,644, or about $2.64 each.