GAO: No problem smuggling secret weapons out of US

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Daniel Tencer
June 13, 2009 - Raw Story

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You've got to hand it to the U.S. Government Accountability Office — they've got initiative.

When the government agency — which has for years been holding successive administrations' feet to the fire over deficit spending and other management issues — was tasked with investigating how secure America's sensitive technologies are, it set up a dummy corporation to buy American weapons and see if it could ship them to countries known as transit points for smuggling weapons.

What they managed to smuggle out of the United States was astounding: Triggers for nuclear bombs; microchips for smart missiles; components for improvised explosives; even current-issue U.S. Army body armor.

And the method they used to do it was brilliant in its simplicity: To avoid export restrictions, they set up their dummy corporation inside the United States. Then, once in possession of the equipment, they shipped it overseas.

From Geopolitical Monitor:

Since most export-restricted technologies are legal to purchase in the U.S., the front company was able to purchase and export restricted technologies to states known to serve as terrorist transshipment points.

This loophole represents a serious threat to non-proliferation efforts as well as a boon to criminal and terrorist networks. According to the Department of Justice, attempts by foreign states and terrorist networks to acquire U.S. arms and technology occur on a daily basis.
Geopolitical Monitor's report links a recent spike in the quantity and quality of Afghan insurgents' weapons to the ease with which advanced American weaponry is moving around the globe.

But the report also points to "state actors" who are taking advantage of the situation. In 2006, the report mentions, a US company was fined $15 million for sending weapons microchips to China, and in 2007, one person was jailed for trying to smuggle smart bomb parts into China.

The report concludes: "The real legacy from export control loopholes will come in the form of an altered military balance between the U.S. and emerging powers such as China."