War of Wits

Although the United States is committed to diplomacy to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis, recent revelations bode ill for those efforts and in fact show that the door has already slammed shut on our ability to bring about a peaceful resolution. It is looking increasingly likely that we may need to intervene militarily to prevent Iran from arming a nuclear weapon.

The US Defense Logistics Agency exists to procure and provide weaponry, vehicles, fixed and rotary wing aircraft and armor to the military for our war efforts. It has done so since World War II. But many of our sworn enemies are secretly obtaining what is supposedly “demilitarized” or “demilled” surplus hardware and war materiel. I’m not talking about rifles, ammunition or mess kits. I’m referring to F-14 microcircuitry, helicopter parts, missile seeker heads, rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance equipment.In one case, Iranian middlemen bought F-14 parts and were caught and convicted. Customs returned the parts to Defense, who then turned around and sold them to yet another suspected Iranian buyer with the evidence tags from the first seizure still attached. In another case allegedly confirmed by Customs, a convicted Pakistani arms dealer successfully exported CH-47 Chinook helicopter parts to Iran upon his release from prison.

In years past, the United States was friendly with and propped up the Shah of Iran. We sold him billions of dollars of military equipment, including dozens of what was –at the time– the preeminent fighter/interceptor aircraft in the world, the F-14 Tomcat. The Tomcat, with its AWG-9 radar and its AIM-54 Phoenix long range air-to-air missile, is supremely capable of tracking two dozen targets, while simultaneously locking up and destroying six of them at a time from over 100 miles away. Its primary role is that of an air-to-air interceptor.

After the Shah of Iran was toppled and sent into exile, sanctions were slapped on the Iranian regime. The Iranian Tomcats, with no spare parts and no more Grumman technical expertise, fell into disrepair. The fear now is that an Iranian frontman goes to a Defense Logistics auction and gets their hands on the parts they need to reactivate and perhaps arm at least a few of their F-14s. The laissez faire attitude which some people exhibit when national security vulnerabilities are exposed is astounding. Fred Baillie, the Defense Logistics Agency’s Executive Director of Distribution, seems deluded into thinking that since Customs caught these individuals, the proof is in the pudding; they were caught, so the system works.

I beg to differ. Mr. Baillie is a national security nightmare. Catching them because they may not have dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s on their export licenses for our aircraft technology doesn’t mean the system works. It means the system is like a sieve, and this time we got lucky. The Logistics Agency claims they need to balance national security with their fiduciary duty to taxpayers. Nice try. Those scales should always tip in national security’s favor. The airframes can be stripped down and then the metals can be melted down and recycled, recouping a good portion of taxpayer money and ensuring no one else gets their hands on them.

The Chinese are the knockoff kings of the Earth. An estimated 95% of all Windows software in China is pirated. Up to now, they ripped off almost all technology they now possess. With the help of State Metal Industries of Camden, New Jersey, they nearly obtained over 200 individual guidance systems for AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, which could be used against US aircraft in the region. If this practice isn’t immediately curbed and the so-called “contractors” who procure these parts for foreign militaries aren’t put out of business, one of these days US troops will be the victims of fratricide by proxy. Foreign soldiers will be using American equipment we sold them to kill American soldiers, and that is an unacceptable proposition.