Shays said the Pentagon must end the sale of F-14 spare parts, Middle East Newsline reported. He said
Iran was the only country that operated the F-14 Tomcat, a 1970s-era
platform retired by the U.S. Navy.
Officials said Iran has been desperate to find spare parts to maintain
its F-14 and F-4 fleet, procured from the United States in the early 1970s.
They said Iran has achieved the capability of producing about 15 percent of
the F-14.
As a result, Iran has used front companies as well as China and Pakistan
to obtain F-14 and Chinook helicopter components from the United States.
Officials said the companies ordered the components from the Pentagon's
Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service and then shipped the equipment
to China and the United Arab Emirates.
The Pentagon was said to have sold the surplus parts without
certification of the end-user. In one case, U.S. customs agents seized the
parts before they were delivered to Teheran, returned them to the Pentagon,
which immediately resold the equipment.
One California company, Multicore, was deemed an Iranian front that
acquired missile and F-14 components from the Pentagon. Another firm, State
Metal Industries, based in Camden, N.J., was convicted of shipping AIM-7
missile guidance components to a Chinese front for Iran.
In late January, Laura Wang-Woodford, a U.S. citizen and director of
Singapore-based Monarch Aviation, was arraigned on a 20-count federal
indictment in connection with violating the International Emergency Powers
Act. Ms. Wang-Woodford, arrested in December 2007, was charged with
exporting components for Chinook helicopters from the United States to
Singapore and then to Iran.
"Specifically, the defendant illegally exported vane assemblies and
bevel gears, which are designed for Chinook military helicopters," the
indictment said.
The indictment said Ms. Wang-Woodford and her husband, Brian, sold
sensitive military equipment to Iran for more than 16 years. Brian Woodford
has been wanted for questioning.
In 2007, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, demonstrated the ease with which surplus equipment could be bought
from the Pentagon. GAO investigators bought $1.1 million worth of rocket
launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas without even presenting a
Social Security number or credit history.
"The military should not sell or give away any sensitive military
equipment," Shays said. "If we no longer need it, it needs to be
destroyed — totally destroyed."