Back in the 1970s when the Shah was on his throne and Iran was our friend, the U.S. sold Iran a fleet of F-14 Tomcat fighter jets. Iran is still flying them and needs parts. In fact, F-14 parts were on the top of the list of the parts delivered to Iran as part of the Iran-Contra deal. So where is Iran getting parts today? From the Pentagon apparently.

Anyone familiar with the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS) and its commercial partner Government Liquidation LLC will not find it surprising in the least that surplus F-14 parts sold by them are winding up in Iranian hands. All USML surplus parts are required to be sold with an End User Certificate that informs the buyer of export restrictions. Certain sensitive USML surplus parts are required to be demilitarized or “demilled” before sale. In more than a few instances the processing personnel at DRMS fail to do either.

According to an Associate Press story which hit the wires today, surplus F-14 Tomcat parts have been sold to middlemen acting on behalf of Iran:

In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department’s surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again – customs evidence tags still attached – to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.

The AP report provides a number of other instances of military surplus winding up in the hands of the Iranians and the Chinese.

You may also wonder what happens if someone buys a surplus USML item that doesn’t have an EUC and then exports it. Well, the exporter could go to jail. The government can be mistaken about whether an item is USML; an exporter can’t.

(Hat tip to Kevin Wolf at Bryan Cave who pointed me to the AP story.)

Last month I wrote about the Motorola i580, which Motorola advertises as being built to 810F military specifications. That led me to post this smart-alecky query: if the i580 is built to milspec can I take it with me on international trips?

Reader Matthew Lancaster did the right thing to answer the question — he went directly to the source. And then he posted in a comment to the original post what he found out:

My policy has always been that when you don’t know the answer, go to the source – the manufacturer. In response to my inquiry, Motorola returned the following:

*****

Dear Matthew,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding obtaining the Export Control Classification Number, Schedule B Code and other related export controls information for the Motorola iDEN i580. We appreciate your interest in our products.

To summarize your conversation with our representative T-, the Motorola i580 is considered a regular transceiver radio/cell phone when traveling outside the US. There are no military spec’s on or in the phone. It does not have be treated any differently than any other cell phones.

We hope that conversation and this response have answered your question regarding obtaining the Export Control Classification Number, Schedule B Code and other related export controls information for the Motorola iDEN i580. Thank you for choosing Motorola.

*****

Not exactly the information I was hoping to receive (an ECCN and Schedule B Code), but close.

Well, that does resolve the question if in fact the phone isn’t built to milspec. But it seems to me that Motorola has leapt out of the DDTC frying pan and into the FTC fire given that Motorola clearly advertises the military specifications of the phone. Here’s a press release that touts that the phone is built to milspec. And then on the web page about the phone, Motorola waxes eloquent about the 810F military specs:

810F Military Specs Built to meet 810F military specifications to withstand the toughest days in the roughest places.

. . .

Meets Tough US Military Specifications.

And the television commercial for the phone mentions the milspec business. I mean they are practically bundling the phone with a tour of duty in Basra. And I’m sure that’s where the Motorola advertising department will want to send the CSR who gave the reply to Matthew, at least if they ever find out about it.

(By the way, the real answer to the question about the phone isn’t to plead false advertising. The best answer, in my view, is that there is a theoretical distinction between building something to milspec and something that is “specifically designed, modified or configured for military application.” The latter would be something that you actually sold to the military. Accordingly, as long as Motorola doesn’t sell the i580 to the DoD, you can safely take it with you out of the country.)

At the Strategic Security Blog, run by the Federation of American Scientists, Matt Schroeder reports today on a briefing given last week at a Washington think tank by Mark Esper of the Aerospace Industries Association. Esper announced “Phase II” of the AIA’s campaign to reform U.S. export laws.

Some of you may remember Phase I which included the proposal to remove the license requirement for export of certain items on the USML to Australia and the United Kingdom. That proposal met its ignominious end in 2004 in the House International Relations Committee in 2004 at the hands of Chairman Henry Hyde who seemed convinced that the U.K and Australia would divert unlicensed exports from the U.S. to various unspecified but problematic nations and groups.

According to Schroeder, Esper revealed little about the content of Phase II other than to say that the proposals were “measurable, attainable, and meaningful,” that they were “capable of reasonably quick implementation by the administration,” and that (at least some of) the proposals “do not involve Congressional action.” Oddly the AIA’s White Paper on Export Reform has disappeared from the AIA’s website or, rather, the link to that White Paper is now broken. Once bitten, twice shy, I suppose.

So, we’ll have to wait and see both what AIA intends to propose and whether the 110th Congress will be more open to reform than its predecessors.

If I said that the U.S. defense export community might actually applaud a report from Amnesty International, you would probably say that I need a vacation. I do, in fact, need a vacation, but that is not why I’m saying that the new report Arms Without Borders, released on Monday, might be received favorably by certain members of the defense industry.

The Amnesty report does advocate the adoption of an international arms control treaty, which, at first glance, wouldn’t appear to be at the top of most defense companies’ wish lists. But, the report advocates the international treaty to level the playing field among companies in different countries. A global treaty would eliminate any competitive disadvantage for manufacturers in the United States or Europe, countries with relatively strict arms control regimens, when compared to manufacturers in countries with emerging defense industries, countries which, for the most part, have lax or non-existent controls on arms exports.

The report identifies Israel, India, South Korea, Brazil, Singapore and South Africa as emerging exporters of defense articles and notes the absence of robust controls in those countries. As to India, for example, the report says this:

In 2001, India removed its prohibition on foreign investment in its arms sector, in order to allow, according to Jane’s Defence Industry, ‘badly needed technology transfers’. Now, the production of conventional arms is another area where India is becoming globally competitive.

In 2002, India’s Defence Minister, George Fernandes, announced the scrapping of a government ‘blacklist’ of countries too sensitive for arms to be exported to. Since 2003, India has reportedly exported to Myanmar and Sudan, both of which, according to the UN, systematically violate human rights, and are now subject to EU and UN arms embargoes respectively.

The report also focuses on the consequences of manufacturers licensing production of defense articles in countries with less stringent export controls:

When companies license production overseas, the weapons and other military or security equipment produced may be destined for the legitimate security forces of the country where the arms are made, or they may be destined for the export market. However, few, if any governments have brought in effective controls over licensed production deals. As a result, they retain little or no control over production levels or the onward export of arms produced overseas under licence from companies within their jurisdiction.

The report then notes that the United States alone attempts to address this problem through its proviso, when approving manufacturing license agreements outside the United States, that prohibits exports of the manufactured item without a U.S. license for such export.

Inadequate controls on re-exports, on arms brokers, and on exports of dual-use goods that are converted to military use are all singled out by the report. In each of these instances, current U.S. export law addresses these problems in one fashion or another. The call by Arms Without Borders for uniform global approaches to these could well benefit U.S. industry, which will increasingly see competition from countries with less robust controls.