Pentagon Sold Plane Parts Sought By Iran: Report

Iran Focus ^ | August 3, 2007

[Fennie]

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has mistakenly sold the public about 1,400 aircraft parts that Iran is known to be seeking for its aging fleet of U.S. F-14 "Tomcat" fighter planes, according to a government report.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, told lawmakers the aircraft parts were subject to controls that should have kept them from the public but that a technical glitch allowed for their sale.

The Pentagon suspended the sale of all F-14 related parts, including simple nuts and bolts, in January. But the GAO said the aircraft parts were sold to unidentified buyers in February...

[DoughtyOne]

Is there any national security in the United States any longer? The answer is no. Without a doubt our security doors have been removed and destroyed.

Wierd...

[SampleMan]

Only Iran had F-14’s. Is it so hard to not sell ANY F-14 parts?

[narby]

Yeah. But read the article and it sounds like they’ve retrieved all the parts but two, and they’ve located the owners of them. This is a non-story.

[Clam Digger]

Only Iran had F-14’s.

I didn't believe you, so I looked around and it appears you are correct. Thanks for the info.

[BGHater]

See:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1875777/posts

[Gator101]

Maybe we should just sell them all of our old F-14’s?

Then maybe they would come out for a stand-up fight for once instead of hiding behind civilians and the UN as they encourage Islamic terrorism the world over.

I imagine our flyboys would make short work of a bunch of aging and probably poorly maintained F-14s piloted by Iranians.

[darkwing104]

Does anyone have a list of parts that was sold? Many parts (nuts and bolts) that were used on the F-14s are used on other aircraft. Without a breakdown of the parts in question this is a non story.

[mrmargaritaville]

Hey look on the bright side-those parts might have been outsourced to a Chinese manufacturer-so you can count on them-1) Not working, 2) being painted with a lead based paint and 3) made using off spec melamine.

[VaRepublican]

here’s a link with some info.

http://www.iiaf.net/aircraft/jetfighters/F14/f14.html

[Fennie]

China has apparently played a substantial role in Iran’s network of theft and smuggling to mantain its U.S.-made arsenal. In 1995 Iran expert Kenneth Timmerman reported that U.S. Customs officials told him that “Chinese middlemen and front companies were deeply involved in a vast military aircraft spare parts pipeline to Iran.”

In 1999 the Cox Commission reported that between 1996 and 1997 the Los Angeles U.S. Customs Service seized over 500 electron tubes for the F-14A on their way to Hong Kong. These were likely for the fighter’s AN/AWG-9 radar.

And then in February 2003 the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) indicted Jinghua Zhuang and Xiuwen Liang, of the California-based Maytone International, for seeking export parts for the F-14, AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile, HAWK surface-to-air missile and the TOW anti-tank missile.

Source: http://www.strategycenter.net/printVersion/print_pub.asp?pubID=109

[Londo Molari]

Yes it is a stupid screw up. However, I am sure those F-14’s are junk by now even with those spares. Do you really think that years of neglected maintenance is going to be fixed by those idiots over there?

Besides, I am sure their pilots would not be able to use those vintage 1970’s F-14’s even if they could get them off the ground.

[darkwing104]

Here's a little background. Most, if not all, of these parts sold were scrap. Non usable. Most of the people buying this scrap have no idea what it is. The people selling it don't know what it was, the GAO bean-counters couldn't tell a bolt from a 7.62 round...Forget the press, they are totally clueless. It take a person familiar with aircraft parts to assess it, that is why I wanted to know what parts they are talking about. The article you listed is more useless than a leaked Intelligence Estimate report.

[Paul Ross]

...they’ve retrieved all the parts but two, and they’ve located the owners of them. This is a non-story.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. First, it should never have happened.

Second, they have "contacted" those two owners. Most the parts were nuts and bolts...but not those two. And note...they haven't returned a thing.

What do you suppose that the story is that the two owners work for ...

[narby]

I've worked in the aircraft restoration business, and I've seen the "parts" that come out of surplus sales at Davis Monthan, and even an entire surplus F-14 within the last few months. Trust me, anything they got is basically worthless. We're talking about heavily corroded 1970's technology (remember they served on Aircraft Carriers) that was trashed by the time it was sold. The airframe I saw was partially burned, the composite parts were falling apart, and the structural aluminum was corroded to the point of being dangerous to fly. The electronics boxes of 1970's vintage F-4s I worked on were finicky enough to keep working when brand new, much less after all these years and the abuse they've been put through and the F-14 was much more complex than the old Bent Wing.

With no support to Iranian F-14s for the last 25 years, we could give them tons of junk from the desert at DM and whatever they could be lucky enough to get in the air we could shoot down in minutes.

This is a non-issue. I think someone is making a big deal out of F-14 parts because there are a few government agencies that can look good in the media by doing it. Not because these things are in any way a threat to our forces.