January19, 2007:
The U.S. recently retired the F-14 jet fighter, after over three
decades of operating from aircraft carriers. When that happened, a stockpile of
F-14 spare parts became surplus, and were auctioned off to authorized dealers
(who agreed to abide by American export restrictions on military goods.) Some
of these dealers did not, or at least the foreigners they sold the stuff to did
not, obey these export laws. U.S. investigators caught some of the F-14 parts
headed for Iran, and also discovered that some surplus helicopter parts (for
CH-47s) also went to Iran last year. The Iranians have been running a rather
notorious weapons and parts smuggling operation for over a decade. This has
enabled them to keep some of their 1970s vintage American military equipment
running, and equip their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. China
has also gotten their hands on surplus U.S. military gear. Not to use, but to
enable their engineers to figure out American technology secrets and production
techniques.
The
only solution to this "sensitive surplus" problem is for the government to
render the sensitive parts harmless (via dismantling, melting or otherwise
destroying.) But to do this, the government also has to become more accurate in
determining which parts hold valuable (to hostile foreigners) secrets. The F-14
aircraft, for example, contains over 75,000 different parts. Some sixty percent
of those parts are "common hardware," and the rest contain varying degrees of
sensitive knowledge. It takes a lot of effort and care to identify and properly
destroy the "special" components. Life was so simple when you could
just auction the stuff off to people who promised to behave. The good old days
are gone.