Pentagon Said to Keep Poor Missile Records (Sales)

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) does a poor job tracking shoulder-fired missiles that the United States sells around the world, making it more difficult to keep the weapons from terrorists, according to a congressional report released Thursday.



There are as many as 750,000 of the light but lethal weapons made by 30 countries, with about 1 percent of the total outside government controls, the General Accounting Office (news - web sites) said.


"The proliferation of man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) has been of growing concern to the United States and other governments," said the investigative arm of Congress.


Terrorists are attracted to the weapons as a way to bring down commercial airliners because the weapons are deadly, portable, easy to use, easy to hide and cost from less than $1,000 each to $100,000, the report said.

~snip~
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=693&e=6&u=/ap/20040603/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/shoulder_fired_missiles

:eyes:

[htuttle]

1. Didn't Al Martin used to rant about the auctions at the Redstone Arsenal?

There you go.

on edit: I had the name of the Armory wrong.

Here's one link:
http://www.almartinraw.com/behindthescenes.html

[gratuitous]

2. Start tracking missile sales

And the next thing you know, the gun grabbers are taking away your hunting rifle!

Charlton Heston is my president because I'm barin damaged, too!

[peterh]

3. This reminds me of the Halliburton story a while back….

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/7257053.htm?1c

A former Halliburton Co. employee testified Thursday he helped consummate the sale of thousands of mini-warheads to a Canadian explosives expert even though he believed it was illegal - and never warned the buyer.

Mitchell Hambright took the stand in the federal court trial of David Hudak, who is accused of stockpiling more than 2,400 shoulder-launchable SMAW missile warheads and using U.S. defense techniques to train foreign troops. Hudak, a Canadian who operated an anti-terrorism training business in Roswell, faces a mandatory 50 years in prison if convicted.
The merchandise was "not of any use to us, nor could it be sold to any of our customers," Hambright testified. "He was getting a lot of explosive devices at a good price."
The documents described the merchandise as "charge demolition SMAW." SMAW stands for "shoulder-launched multipurpose assault weapon."
Hambright, who described his JRC job as that of a contract facilitator, said he went along with orders to move the merchandise.



Yep, I guess it is hard to track when you have defense contractors moving inventory just to move inventory…..:eyes: