Posted on 01/16/2007 6:10:37 AM PST by edpc
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries - including Iran and China - who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department's surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components.
In one case, federal investigators said, the contraband made it to Iran, a country President Bush branded part of an "axis of evil."
In that instance, 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, speaking on condition of anonymity, say those parts made it to Iran.
The surplus sales can operate like a supermarket for arms dealers
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
Ahhhhh.....governmental beauracracy at its finest.
Related
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1768244/posts
Iran, China Seek Military Equipment From Pentagon Surplus Auctions
Thank you.
ping
The same people are running airport security, checking your texes, etc.
No need for the enemy to try any James Bond stuff. When it's no good to us, we'll just put it on clearance.
Administations may change, but some things remain the same.
Why do we have surplus auctions, anyway? Surely we we don't need the money, and could sell directly to friendly governments if we want them to have parts for equipment that we sold them.
Nothing like shopping at your local surplus store.
Free trade BTTT.
"You can't professionalize unless you Federalize"
One can only hope we are selling them defective parts. And what about these guys? Why aren't they being jailed for 25 years or so? A year in prison isn't enough for treason. Why did we let the Pakistani stay here and continue in business after he was convicted the first time?
"Arif Ali Durrani, a Pakistani, was convicted last year in California in the illegal export of weapons components to the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Belgium in 2004 and 2005 and sentenced to just over 12 years in prison. Customs investigators say the items included Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran that he bought from a U.S. company that acquired them from a Pentagon surplus sale, and that those parts made it to Iran via Malaysia. Durrani is appealing his conviction.
An accomplice, former Naval intelligence officer George Budenz, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in July to a year in prison. Durrani's prison term is his second; he was convicted in 1987 of illegally exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran."
Only a year in jail, second offense, what a joke.
Asked why the Pentagon would sell any F-14 parts, given their value to Iran, Baillie said: "Our first priority truly is national security, and we take that very seriously.
Please tell me this guy's joking. I am sure the loved ones of dead soldiers will be comforted knowing that.
This is a treasonous offense and our enemies are laughing. How many civilians and soldiers will die just because this emboldens our enemies?
Bump
Nothing like willing sellers' and willing buyers.
A thing of beauty, eh?
State Metal Industries, a Camden, N.J., company convicted in June of violating export laws over a shipment of AIM-7 Sparrow missile guidance parts it bought from Pentagon surplus in 2003 and sold to an entity partly owned by the Chinese government. The company pleaded guilty to an export violation, was fined $250,000 and placed on probation for three years. Customs and Border Protection inspectors seized the parts -- nearly 200 pieces of the guidance system for the Sparrow missile system -- while inspecting cargo at a New Jersey port."Our mistake was selling it for export," said William Robertson, State Metal's attorney. He said the company knew the material was going to China but didn't know the Chinese government partially owned the buyer.
Rooooooigghhht.
Ya gotta love these idiots who put their pockets over their patriotism. These are the same morons that will be whining for the US military to come save their dumb butts when all of these "surplus" parts they gleefully sold to China are pointed back in our direction!
And they KEEP FAILING REPEATEDLY, and in the most egregious ways. Almost sounds like bribery is at work:
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 incident appalled even an expert on weaknesses in Pentagon surplus security controls.
"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 only produce about 15 percent of the parts itself, he said.
Sensitive military surplus items are supposed to be demilitarized or "de-milled" -- 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.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found it alarmingly easy to acquire sensitive surplus. Last year, its agents bought $1.1 million 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 in fiscal 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.
DISGUSTING! No other word describes how dumbed down the Pentagon has become since 1989.
Genesis 25: 29-34
29And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint:
30And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.
31And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.
32And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
33And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
34Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.
"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."
All of the F-14's and their parts should be mothballed, not sold as surplus. When China finally decides to take a bite out of us we're going to be losing aircraft faster than we can build them, and we'll have no choice but to dip into mothballed stores.
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