Commission: U.S. weapons technology re-exported to Iran, Iraq, China

WASHINGTON Ñ A U.S. presidential commission on defense offsets has charged that American weapons and technology have ended up in such Middle East states as Iran and Iraq.

The commission said the United States has failed to enforce what members termed one of the strongest licensing regimes in the world. The panel said U.S. equipment and systems have been re-exported from its allies to such countries as Iran, Iraq and China.

Ann Markusen, a professor at the University of Minnesota and a member of the commission, said the U.S. technologies are frequently exported to prohibited third parties for unauthorized uses. She cited the 1992 sale of U.S. gyroscopes and accelerometers for Japan's F-4 fighters, systems which ended up being sold to Iran.

Another illegal transfer, Ms. Markusen said in the report, was the Israeli transfer of U.S.-licensed missile and radar technology to China in the 1980s and 1990s. She also asserted that Brazil transferred U.S. missile technology to Iraq. The technology was used to improve the targeting capability of Iraqi Scud missiles.

"In small arms, there are numerous examples of violations of licensing agreements, many of them the product of offset arrangements," Ms. Markusen said in the report. "Small arms proliferation is a significant security concern for the United States because regional conflicts in areas such as the Balkans, the Middle East, and Africa require peacekeeping and humanitarian operations which are rendered much more dangerous as small arms spread."

The report did not disclose Washington's response to the re-export of prohibited U.S. technologies to Iran or Iraq.

In 1989, the General Accounting Office, the watchdog agency of Congress, reported five cases of unauthorized transfers of U.S. weapons and components.

The illegal transfers stemmed from 18 coproduction agreements. In its interim report, the U.S. commission recommended the elimination or significant reduction of defense offset agreements. Offsets provide a purchasing country with subcontracts or buy-backs as part of a weapons sale.

The final report is expected to be completed by October. Other members of the commission Ñ which began in 1999 Ñ include the secretaries of commerce, defense and state in the outgoing Clinton administration as well as the heads of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.