Report says US military gear sold to Iran and China

From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

The Pentagon.

Fighter jet parts and other U.S. military gear that were to be sold to Iran and China have been traced back to the Pentagon. The gear was not sold directly to these countries, but rather it was obtained by middlemen who the sold it again.

In one case, federal investigators said that a Pakistani middleman purchased arms from the Defense Department’s surplus auction. The arms purchased were Chinook helicopter engine parts, which the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said did successfully make it to Iran.

In a second case, Tomcat parts were bought from the Defense Department’s surplus division. Custom agents confiscated and returned the parts, but later found out that the Defense Department had resold the parts to another buyer suspected of being a broker for Iran. Except for the US, which recently retired its Tomcat air fleet, Iran is the only other country flying Tomcats.

In 2005 alone, the profits made from the Pentagon's public surplus sales were $57 million.

The Pentagon has had previous incidents in the past. In 2003, a Camden, New Jersey company, State Metal Industries, was convicted for selling AIM-7 Sparrow missile guidance parts, which it had bought from the Defense Department’s surplus auctions, to an entity partially owned by the Chinese government.

Sources

• Al Pessin "Report Says US Military Equipment Gets to Iran, China". VOA, January 17, 2007
• Sharon Theimer "AP: Iran Gets Army Gear in Pentagon Sale". Associated Press, January 16, 2007
• "AP: Iran Gets Army Gear in Pentagon Sale". New York Times, January 16, 2007
  

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable. Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators. Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections. Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.