Weapons reduction, government-style

A newly released government report shows that the U.S. Defense
Department has "lost" weapons and equipment that could "get into the
hands of terrorists or foreign countries."

The General Accounting Office report, "Defense Inventory: Inadequate
Compliance with Controls for Excess Firearms and Other Sensitive Items,"
was released in late December after being declassified by the Pentagon.
The report documents the loss of "machine guns" and advanced
"electronics" for warplanes from the U.S. military.

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"Although we were able to account for the items in 104 of 107
transactions reviewed, we were unable to trace the actual disposition of
the items in 3 transactions," states the report.

Several U.S. military depots and centers were checked for the loss of
"national security" items. According to the General Accounting Office,
the Defense Distribution Depot in San Diego lost an advanced electronics
computer for use on the U.S. Navy E-2 "Hawkeye" radar plane.

U.S. Navy E-2 radar plane, nicknamed "Hawkeye."

"No destruction certification existed for one item, a digital computer
used for defensive countermeasures on the E-2 aircraft with technologies
that could be used against the Department's forces by a foreign
military," wrote the GAO. "Depot officials speculated that the computer
had been destroyed and that the destruction certification had been
misplaced."

According to the report, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Keyport,
Washington, lost track of "18 computers used for guiding air- or
surface-launched MK-46 torpedoes to a target."

"Center officials believe the computers in question were destroyed, but
they could not be sure due to the control weaknesses," states the
report, noting that military officials at Keyport were not sure of the
final status on the missing computers.

At the Defense Distribution Depot in Norfolk, Virginia, the GAO
discovered "a high power simulator used to test early warning systems on
Navy aircraft" was missing."

"Depot officials believe that the simulator had been destroyed and that
the certification had been misplaced because there was an annotation on
a logbook that the item was destroyed. However, the officials could not
be certain this was the case," states the report.

The GAO also discovered weapons missing from Defense Department
inventories. According to the report, "records on four firearms
transactions showed that personnel at Fort Hood, Texas, had entered data
in the inventory system that these firearms, including eight machine
guns, were sent to the local disposal office, which is not authorized to
accept firearms."

"Our review showed that none of these items were shipped to the disposal
office," concluded the report. "Army officials told us that these four
transactions occurred when they discovered that the firearms were listed
in their inventory records but were no longer on hand. No investigation
was made to determine what had happened to the firearms."

How much Pentagon weaponry is getting into the wrong hands? According to
the GAO's report, "many of those losses occurred during training
exercises, but 69 of the losses (59 percent) were attributed to theft
and were never located. For example, nine thefts reported during fiscal
year 1996 involved firearms, including a machine gun, which are still
missing."

U.S. Navy advanced MK-46 homing torpedo.

There is no question to U.S. law enforcement officials that missing and
stolen military equipment poses a threat to their domestic efforts. In
1995, police officers discovered a
functional grenade launcher during a raid on a methamphetamine lab. The
launcher was traced to a Pentagon surplus outlet in Crane, Ind.
Although the weapon had been stolen, documents provided by the Defense
Department showed the launcher had been cut into scrap.

However, according to a 1997 article from U.S. News & World Report, "The
Pentagon's Army and Navy Store" by Peter Cary, Douglas Pasternak, and
Penny Loeb, foreign countries also take advantage of the Defense
Department's weaknesses in control.

U.S. Customs Service officials say China, Iran and Iraq are active
buyers of mislabeled fully functional military equipment sold from
official Defense Department outlets. Many of these parts, sold as
"surplus", were brand new.

Frequently, military equipment is illegally exported by Chinese "scrap
dealers." Among the items seized by U.S. Customs inspectors have been
encryption devices, submarine propulsion parts, radar systems, electron
tubes for Patriot missiles, and even Stealth
fighter parts.