Excerpt:
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates revealed that he was completely in the dark about the deal. The admission by Gates echoed similar confessions by the Pentagon top brass that they also were unaware of the buyout.
The Defense Department and the U.S. intelligence agencies were surprised by the proposed deal and had to scramble in order to get it reviewed for national security reasons.
The failure at the Defense Department is attributed to the Defense Technology Security Agency or DTSA. During the Clinton years, DTSA was a strong advocate of checking all export deals with China. In fact, aggressive DTSA efforts were documented by the Loral Corporation for holding up the sale of advanced radars to the Chinese military. Today, DTSA is a headless giant unable to do its job.
The Pentagon has not appointed an active director to run DTSA and the length of time the position has been vacant suggests little sense of urgency to do so. Leaderless, DTSA was caught unaware of the deal and was unable to provide warning to senior Defense Department officials.
The current "acting" head of DTSA, Mrs. Beth M. McCormick, actually served during the Clinton administration under Defense Secretary William Perry. This fact alone should raise alarm bells.
CFIUS ruled that 3Com couldn't enter into a take over bid with Huawei Technologies due to National Security issues. But, that doesn't seem to have stopped them. Now 3Com has named Robert Mao as their new CEO. Robert Mao will be based out of China.