Investigation finds U.S. military hardware easy to buy, ship
• Watchdog agency GAO buys military hardware, ships it overseas with ease
• Lawmaker: "Gigantic loophole" allows enemies to get U.S. technology
• Hardware that can be used in nuclear devices and ground fighting purchased
• "The scandal here may be what is legal, not what is illegal," representative says
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Military hardware that can be used in nuclear devices and ground fighting can be easily purchased In the United States and shipped overseas, a government investigation revealed Thursday. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) watchdog agency set up fake companies to obtain military and dual use items -- which have both military and commercial use -- in the United States and ship them overseas, according to a report made public at a House subcommittee hearing. The domestic purchases allow buyers to avoid U.S. restrictions on sales to foreign entities, it noted. Items purchased in the bogus transactions included parts for making nuclear devices and guiding missiles that could carry nuclear warheads, as well as night-vision devices, body armor and other hardware for ground combat, said the report provided to the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. "There appears to be a gigantic loophole within our laws that makes it easy for our enemies to get hold of our superior military technology and use it against us," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Michigan. Gregory Kutz, a GAO managing director who led the 13-month investigation, said it found "sensitive dual-use and military technology can be easily and legally purchased from manufacturers and distributors within the United States and illegally exported without detection." He stressed that no laws were broken by any of the companies that sold items to the undercover GAO operation, and that the magnitude of trying to check all overseas travelers and shipments made it impossible to halt illegal export of the items under current law. Committee members said the lack of regulation or export controls made the situation particularly troubling. "The scandal here may be what is legal, not what is illegal," said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon.
Dear Mr Bush
Let me get this straight, in the 8 years of your “Ye-ha” as a foreign policy to fight a self created war of terror, it NEVER occurred to you to check domestic military hardware sales to the very nations you put on the list of people you would like to bomb back into the stone age for freedom and democracy??? You had time to torture, start a war based on a pack of lies, kill a million or so Iraqi’s (we’re not sure because you don’t count them when you kill them), set the economy into decline through the offensive cost of the war, set up secret CIA torture prisons in Europe, kidnap people illegally from around the planet, spy on American’s, erode their civil rights, hold people indefinitely without charging them and lower America’s standing in the world supposedly to combat extremists who wish to do the West harm YET AT NO TIME thought of perhaps passing restrictions on NOT SELLING EXTREMISTS THE BLOODY WEAPONS IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!
Just when I didn’t think I could despise the moronic, ill thought out knee jerk manner in which you ran America, along comes news of the one thing you could have done that would’ve successfully stopped high tech military hardware getting into the hands of extremists and you didn’t do a bloody thing – what kept you George? Busy torturing illegally kidnapped people in secret prisons to save democracy? It didn’t occur to you perhaps to not sell extremists military hardware direct from your factories? America allows it’s corporate military industrial complex to sell America’s enemies the very weapons that could end up killing Americans!
What bold leadership, state sanctioned torture and a war based on lies to stop terrorism – yes. Regulation not to sell the extremists military hardware from your own arms industry – apparently no.
No comments:
Post a Comment