NO SHIRT ... NO SHOES ... NO COMPUNCTION ABOUT BUYING THE MERCHANDISE AND USING IT TO KILL THE SELLER ... NO PROBLEM!

Gee, maybe Iran doesn't seem worried about a war with the U.S. because the Iranians figure they can always get extra military parts from the Pentagon:

The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries -- including Iran and China -- who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department's surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components.

In one case, federal investigators said, the contraband made it to Iran....

In that instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, speaking on condition of anonymity, say those parts made it to Iran.

...Federal investigators are increasingly anxious that Iran is within easy reach of a top priority on its shopping list: parts for the precious fleet of F-14 "Tomcat" fighter jets the United States let Iran buy in the 1970s when it was an ally.

In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department's surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again -- customs evidence tags still attached -- to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran....

Not to worry, though -- the fact that we caught these items being sold to an Iranian front company, then caught them again being sold to a different Iranian front company is proof that the system works:

"The fact that those individuals chose to violate the law and the fact that the customs people caught them really indicates that the process is working," said [Fred] Baillie, the Defense Logistics Agency's executive director of distribution.

I know I'm relieved.

You'd think parts we don't need for F-14 Tomcat fighter jets would simply be destroyed -- the only other country that flies the F-14 is Iran. Nahhh:

Asked why the Pentagon would sell any F-14 parts, given their value to Iran, Baillie said: "Our first priority truly is national security, and we take that very seriously. However, we have to balance that with our other requirement to be good stewards of the taxpayers' money."

Use it up, wear it out, make it do -- or at least make a buck off it by selling it to people who hate us and would happily use it against us.

Incidentally, it appears that the person in charge of security for these items is Officer Wiggum from The Simpsons:

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found it alarmingly easy to acquire sensitive surplus. Last year, its agents bought $1.1 million worth -- including rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas -- by driving onto a base and posing as defense contractors.

"They helped us load our van," Kutz said. Investigators used a fake identity to access a surplus Web site operated by a Pentagon contractor and bought still more, including a dozen microcircuits used on F-14 fighters.

The undercover buyers received phone calls from the Defense Department asking why they had no Social Security number or credit history, but they deflected the questions by presenting a phony utility bill and claiming to be an identity theft victim.

I'm sure "My dog ate it" would have worked just as well.

(Via Memeorandum.)