Post by geronimo on Mar 30, 2008 18:03:29 GMT -4
AP Exclusive: Military gear bound for Iran, China traced to Pentagon surplus sales
The Associated PressPublished: January 16, 2007
E-Mail Article
Listen to Article
Printer-Friendly
3-Column Format
Translate
Share Article
Add to Clippings
Text Size
WASHINGTON: Fighter jet parts and other sensitive U.S. military gear seized from front companies for Iran and brokers for China have been traced in criminal cases to a surprising source: the U.S. Defense Department.
In one case, federal investigators said, contraband bought at auction from Defense surplus stocks was delivered to Iran, which President George W. Bush had in his "axis of evil" grouping. Just Tuesday, the State Department branded Iran as the world's worst exporter of terror
In the Iran case, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say those parts made it to Iran.
Sensitive military surplus items are supposed to be demilitarized, rendered useless for military purposes, or if auctioned, sold only to buyers who promise to obey U.S. arms embargoes, export controls and other laws.
Yet the surplus sales can operate like a supermarket for arms dealers.
Today in Americas
Clinton as underdog says fight isn't overThe pope gets a guide for his U.S. tourColombia details accusations about Venezuela and rebels"Right Item, Right Time, Right Place, Right Price, Every Time. Best Value Solutions for America's Warfighters," the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service says on its Web site, calling itself "the place to obtain original U.S. Government surplus property."
Federal investigators are increasingly anxious that Iran is within easy reach of a top priority on its shopping list: parts for its precious fleet of F-14 "Tomcat" fighter jets the United States let Iran buy in the 1970s when it was an ally.
In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department's surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again, customs evidence tags still attached, to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.
"That would be evidence of a significant breakdown, in my view, in controls and processes," said Greg Kutz, the Government Accountability Office's head of special investigations. "It shouldn't happen the first time, let alone the second time."
A Defense Department official, Fred Baillie, said his agency followed procedures.
"The fact that those individuals chose to violate the law and the fact that the customs people caught them really indicates that the process is working," said Baillie, the Defense Logistics Agency's executive director of distribution. "Customs is supposed to check all exports to make sure that all the appropriate certifications and licenses had been granted."
The Pentagon recently retired its Tomcats and is shipping tens of thousands of spare parts to its surplus office, the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service, where they could be sold in public auctions. Iran is the only other country flying F-14s.
"It stands to reason Iran will be even more aggressive in seeking F-14 parts," said Stephen Bogni, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's arms export investigations. Iran can produce only about 15 percent of the parts itself, he said.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found it alarmingly easy to acquire sensitive surplus. Last year, its agents bought $1.1 million (€850,000) worth — including rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas — by driving onto a base and posing as defense contractors.
"They helped us load our van," Kutz said. Investigators used a fake identity to access a surplus Web site operated by a Pentagon contractor and bought still more, including a dozen microcircuits used on F-14 fighters.
The undercover buyers received phone calls from the Defense Department asking why they had no Social Security number or credit history, but they deflected the questions by presenting a phony utility bill and claiming to be an identity theft victim.
The Pentagon's public surplus sales took in $57 million (€44 million) in the budget year that ended Sept. 30, 2005. The agency also moves extra supplies around within the government and gives surplus military gear such as weapons, armored personnel carriers and aircraft to state and local law enforcement.
Investigators have found the Pentagon's inventory and sales controls rife with errors. They say sales are watched closely by friends and foes of the United States.
Among cases in which U.S. military technology made its way from surplus auctions to brokers for Iran, China and others:
_Items were seized in December 2000 at a California warehouse that belonged to Multicore, described by U.S. prosecutors as a front company for Iran. Among the weaponry it acquired were fighter jet and missile components, including F-14 parts from Pentagon surplus sales, customs agents said. The surplus purchases were returned after two Multicore officers were sentenced to prison for weapons export violations. London-based Multicore is now out of business, but customs continues to investigate whether U.S. companies sold it military equipment illegally.
1 | 2 | 3 Next Page
Back to topHome > Americas
Most E-Mailed Articles
SubscribeLast 24 HoursLast 7 DaysLast 30 Days
1. Dirty, crowded, rich and wonderful 2. Meanwhile: Do you really want to live to be 100? 3. Singapore residents angered by development plan 4. The chimera question 5. Letter from China: A double take on Mao in money-fixated China 6. Back from the U.S., and spreading HIV in Mexico 7. Soccer: Brazil's workers beat Argentina's artists 8. Lack of financing casts shadow on solar power 9. Vietnam plans to allow expatriates to buy and sell houses 10. 'Live-in Maid': A paradox of intimacy
1. The biofuel myths 2. Robber demands cash — but settles for a glass of wine and a group hug 3. Non-Jews reviving Poland's Jewish culture 4. China executes the former head of its food and drug agency 5. Meanwhile: Japan's subtle etiquette code 6. Economists question dominance of free-market ideas 7. Who killed Ashraf Marwan? 8. In France, 'liberté' comes with two wheels 9. Pope restates 'defects' of other Christian faiths in document 10. Dirty, crowded, rich and wonderful
1. Munich emerges as Monocle's most liveable city 2. The biofuel myths 3. Robber demands cash — but settles for a glass of wine and a group hug 4. Non-Jews reviving Poland's Jewish culture 5. Born and raised in a North Korean gulag 6. Rome struggles with a rowdy, drunken boom in tourism 7. 10 commandments from Vatican 8. China executes the former head of its food and drug agency 9. Robert H. Frank's economic guidebook unlocks everyday design enigmas 10. Meanwhile: The six stages of e-mail
iht.com/f1
After a year of scandals,
Formula 1 will be on trial
More from Formula 1:
At Renault, Alonso returns to his roots
Aspiring engineers on mini track to a Grand Prix career
A youthful fascination with Grand Prix racing
Ads by Google
Isp:
Get Comcast Internet for Only $19.99 a Month for 6 Months!
www.Comcast.com/HighSpeedOffer
Internet Explorer 7
Customized by Google. Protect your computer with enhanced security.
www.google.com/toolbar/ie7/
Payroll in 3 easy steps
Pay employees, pay taxes, file forms. Sign up & get 3 months FREE!
Payroll.Intuit.com
Press Releases to China
Distribute your text & photo news to 3,000 media outlets across China
www.XinhuaPRNewswire.com
The Associated PressPublished: January 16, 2007
E-Mail Article
Listen to Article
Printer-Friendly
3-Column Format
Translate
Share Article
Add to Clippings
Text Size
WASHINGTON: Fighter jet parts and other sensitive U.S. military gear seized from front companies for Iran and brokers for China have been traced in criminal cases to a surprising source: the U.S. Defense Department.
In one case, federal investigators said, contraband bought at auction from Defense surplus stocks was delivered to Iran, which President George W. Bush had in his "axis of evil" grouping. Just Tuesday, the State Department branded Iran as the world's worst exporter of terror
In the Iran case, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say those parts made it to Iran.
Sensitive military surplus items are supposed to be demilitarized, rendered useless for military purposes, or if auctioned, sold only to buyers who promise to obey U.S. arms embargoes, export controls and other laws.
Yet the surplus sales can operate like a supermarket for arms dealers.
Today in Americas
Clinton as underdog says fight isn't overThe pope gets a guide for his U.S. tourColombia details accusations about Venezuela and rebels"Right Item, Right Time, Right Place, Right Price, Every Time. Best Value Solutions for America's Warfighters," the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service says on its Web site, calling itself "the place to obtain original U.S. Government surplus property."
Federal investigators are increasingly anxious that Iran is within easy reach of a top priority on its shopping list: parts for its precious fleet of F-14 "Tomcat" fighter jets the United States let Iran buy in the 1970s when it was an ally.
In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department's surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again, customs evidence tags still attached, to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.
"That would be evidence of a significant breakdown, in my view, in controls and processes," said Greg Kutz, the Government Accountability Office's head of special investigations. "It shouldn't happen the first time, let alone the second time."
A Defense Department official, Fred Baillie, said his agency followed procedures.
"The fact that those individuals chose to violate the law and the fact that the customs people caught them really indicates that the process is working," said Baillie, the Defense Logistics Agency's executive director of distribution. "Customs is supposed to check all exports to make sure that all the appropriate certifications and licenses had been granted."
The Pentagon recently retired its Tomcats and is shipping tens of thousands of spare parts to its surplus office, the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service, where they could be sold in public auctions. Iran is the only other country flying F-14s.
"It stands to reason Iran will be even more aggressive in seeking F-14 parts," said Stephen Bogni, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's arms export investigations. Iran can produce only about 15 percent of the parts itself, he said.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found it alarmingly easy to acquire sensitive surplus. Last year, its agents bought $1.1 million (€850,000) worth — including rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas — by driving onto a base and posing as defense contractors.
"They helped us load our van," Kutz said. Investigators used a fake identity to access a surplus Web site operated by a Pentagon contractor and bought still more, including a dozen microcircuits used on F-14 fighters.
The undercover buyers received phone calls from the Defense Department asking why they had no Social Security number or credit history, but they deflected the questions by presenting a phony utility bill and claiming to be an identity theft victim.
The Pentagon's public surplus sales took in $57 million (€44 million) in the budget year that ended Sept. 30, 2005. The agency also moves extra supplies around within the government and gives surplus military gear such as weapons, armored personnel carriers and aircraft to state and local law enforcement.
Investigators have found the Pentagon's inventory and sales controls rife with errors. They say sales are watched closely by friends and foes of the United States.
Among cases in which U.S. military technology made its way from surplus auctions to brokers for Iran, China and others:
_Items were seized in December 2000 at a California warehouse that belonged to Multicore, described by U.S. prosecutors as a front company for Iran. Among the weaponry it acquired were fighter jet and missile components, including F-14 parts from Pentagon surplus sales, customs agents said. The surplus purchases were returned after two Multicore officers were sentenced to prison for weapons export violations. London-based Multicore is now out of business, but customs continues to investigate whether U.S. companies sold it military equipment illegally.
1 | 2 | 3 Next Page
Back to topHome > Americas
Most E-Mailed Articles
SubscribeLast 24 HoursLast 7 DaysLast 30 Days
1. Dirty, crowded, rich and wonderful 2. Meanwhile: Do you really want to live to be 100? 3. Singapore residents angered by development plan 4. The chimera question 5. Letter from China: A double take on Mao in money-fixated China 6. Back from the U.S., and spreading HIV in Mexico 7. Soccer: Brazil's workers beat Argentina's artists 8. Lack of financing casts shadow on solar power 9. Vietnam plans to allow expatriates to buy and sell houses 10. 'Live-in Maid': A paradox of intimacy
1. The biofuel myths 2. Robber demands cash — but settles for a glass of wine and a group hug 3. Non-Jews reviving Poland's Jewish culture 4. China executes the former head of its food and drug agency 5. Meanwhile: Japan's subtle etiquette code 6. Economists question dominance of free-market ideas 7. Who killed Ashraf Marwan? 8. In France, 'liberté' comes with two wheels 9. Pope restates 'defects' of other Christian faiths in document 10. Dirty, crowded, rich and wonderful
1. Munich emerges as Monocle's most liveable city 2. The biofuel myths 3. Robber demands cash — but settles for a glass of wine and a group hug 4. Non-Jews reviving Poland's Jewish culture 5. Born and raised in a North Korean gulag 6. Rome struggles with a rowdy, drunken boom in tourism 7. 10 commandments from Vatican 8. China executes the former head of its food and drug agency 9. Robert H. Frank's economic guidebook unlocks everyday design enigmas 10. Meanwhile: The six stages of e-mail
iht.com/f1
After a year of scandals,
Formula 1 will be on trial
More from Formula 1:
At Renault, Alonso returns to his roots
Aspiring engineers on mini track to a Grand Prix career
A youthful fascination with Grand Prix racing
Ads by Google
Isp:
Get Comcast Internet for Only $19.99 a Month for 6 Months!
www.Comcast.com/HighSpeedOffer
Internet Explorer 7
Customized by Google. Protect your computer with enhanced security.
www.google.com/toolbar/ie7/
Payroll in 3 easy steps
Pay employees, pay taxes, file forms. Sign up & get 3 months FREE!
Payroll.Intuit.com
Press Releases to China
Distribute your text & photo news to 3,000 media outlets across China
www.XinhuaPRNewswire.com