Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has lost track of many large
weapons sold to Gulf Cooperation Council states, a report said.

The General Accountability Office said that the Defense Department
and State Department failed to account for up to 20 percent of U.S. weapons
sold to the six GCC states from 2005 through 2010.

The report was released amid U.S. plans to sell up to $100 billion worth
of weapons to the GCC over the next decade. Congress has already approved a
Saudi request for $60 billion worth of fighter-jets, attack helicopters and
missiles.

GAO, in the first such
report in years, said such states as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates have failed to account for advanced U.S. systems, some of them
suspected of having been shipped to Iran.

“DoD [Department of Defense] personnel in the Gulf countries seldom
document their efforts to verify host country compliance with security and
accountability conditions for sensitive military equipment or activities
they undertake to monitor less sensitive items because DoD does not have a formal policy
requiring them to do so,” the report, titled “Persian Gulf: Implementation
Gaps Limit the Effectiveness of End-Use Monitoring and Human Rights Vetting
for U.S. Military Equipment,” said.

GAO, deemed the fiscal watchdog of Congress, said the Pentagon has not visited any of the six GCC states to conduct end-use monitoring, meant to
focus on main battle tanks, artillery systems, fixed-wing aircraft, and
helicopters. The Pentagon conducted compliance assessment visits to Saudi
Arabia in 2006 and 2008 for the kingdom’s National Guard and military, but
inspectors were not provided guidance.

“From fiscal years 2005 through 2010, the United States authorized
billions of dollars in arms sales and arms exports to Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman,
Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to promote national security and
foreign policy goals,” the report said. “Transfers to the UAE are of
particular concern, as the UAE has been cited by Congress as a transshipment
point for illicit exports to Iran.”

The report said the Pentagon could not find 63 items sold to GCC states
while another 946 were disposed of by the recipients. In all, the Pentagon
was said to account for about 80 percent of weapons and equipment, including
night-vision devices, sold to Gulf Arab clients.

“For example, officials in Qatar were unable to verify the location of a
shipment of sensitive equipment, in part, because State waited three years
before requesting the check,” the report said.

“The check was for an April
23, 2008, shipment of NVDs, but State did not send a cable to post
requesting a check on these items until April 22, 2011 — three years later.
As a result, when embassy officials tried to conduct the check, they
discovered that the commercial end-user had relocated and they could not
account for the items.”

The report said State, through its Blue Lantern program, failed to
conduct any postlicense/preshipment checks in the Gulf countries from 2005
through 2010. About 76 percent of the prelicense checks were said to have
taken place in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

“We determined that State officials in the Gulf countries conducted Blue
Lantern postshipment checks without visiting end-users of U.S. military
equipment in 10 of 13 cases that we reviewed,” the report said.

“Without
conducting a site visit, embassy officials would not have been able to
verify that items were being used in accordance with the terms of their
licenses.”

The GCC has received among the most advanced U.S. missiles,
fighter-jets, helicopters and combat vehicles. U.S. regulations require the
AIM-120C advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles to be secured with
perimeter fencing lighting, alarms and surveillance.

Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have ignored Pentagon demands for a plan
to secure advanced equipment. In February, the report said, the
Pentagon suspended Saudi night-vision requests amid the Defense Ministry’s
refusal to submit a night-vision compliance plan. Three months later, the
ministry relayed the plan.

The report said the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency
warned that it would not recommend night-vision sales to Abu Dhabi unless it
received a night-vision compliance plan by the end of 2011.

Despite Pentagon visits to Abu Dhabi, the UAE, which purchased more than
300 night-vision devices, failed to comply as of Oct. 24, 2011. The Pentagon
has set a deadline for a UAE compliance plan for the end of 2011.

In 2007, the State Department reported that Kuwait lost 115 night-vision
systems purchased from Washington. No explanation was reported.

GAO, which conducted numerous visits to the Gulf, said the Pentagon
remains uncertain whether any of the GCC states fulfilled security
requirements for U.S. weapons. The report quoted Pentagon inspectors as
acknowledging that they did not complete end-monitoring checklists or
maintain them for reference.

“As result, DoD does not have documentation that the Gulf countries have
fulfilled the security and accountability requirements that accompany their
purchase of sensitive defense articles from the United States,” the report
said.

  Defense Department, GAO: U.S. can’t account for 20 percent of arms sold to Gulf states, General Accounting Office, Gulf Cooperation Council, Qatar, State Department