> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of jon louis mann > Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 4:09 PM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: not so secret reasons for u.s.intervention > > > sorry, dan, that is a right wing myth!~) do you really think > > everything the us spends of weapons is reported too the GAO, or > > anywhere else for that matter? > > the illegal sales of billions of dollars worth of weapons involves a > lot of logistics that would be essentially impossible to keep secret. > (snip) > > >arms dealing is a global phenomenon, think of it as > >private enterprise in action. > > It is possible for companies to violate US laws. (but not easy) > without anybody noticing strains credibility. That's what you're arguing, >right?
No, the essential phrase in what I said was _billions of dollars_. Let me walk through various levels of supply and discuss how easy I think it is to hide shipment. It is certainly very possible for a company, particularly an international company, to make compact shipments without notice. For example, the copy of the radiation transport program: MCNP is export restricted. However, given the fact that I can fit it easily and comfortably on a flash drive, I think we have to assume that Iran, North Korea, etc. has a copy of MCNP running on a computer. As the items that are sold become larger, and more restricted in distribution, I think that the ability to sell them without notice goes down. For example, Halliburton sold duel use neutron generators to Iraq during the '90s. They did so through their French subsidiary because it was illegal to do this from their US base. But, these sales did not go unknown. They were just technically legal, and nothing happened to Halliburton. The duel use, BTW, is quite interesting. The main use of these generators is determination of water saturation in cased oil wells. The second is triggering A-bombs. It would not strain credibility that some of these generators could have been sold by a small company without notice. Even though they are traced, they are not traced that well, and some could slip through. And, they are not _that_ hard to make, now, and others could have sold them under the radar. But, still, it's easier for someone to check this, and it's easier for someone to notice something is up, than in the first case. The first case only requires that someone goes overseas with a flash drive. The second requires shipping of equipment that, in all likelihood, more than one person was involved in the design and construction. So, we've moved up from 20 grams to a few score kilos and the detectability has risen. The next step is two fold: shipping single use military equipment out of the country and shipping tons of stuff. I think that it is entirely possible that tons of dual use material can be shipped from the US to Iraq, Iran, N. Korea undetected. I don't think the risk of detection is near zero (like it is with MCNP), but it may be low enough to be worth the risk for someone. However, a US military contractor shipping tons of military to a proscribed foreign country is another matter. First, for the overwhelming majority of them, the US government and its allies are their biggest customers. The profit from the sale would have to be substantial to accept the risk. I'm trying to think of which major US arms company would risk all of their business on the shipment of tons of arms. Now, the resale by a black market broker of used arms that the US sold to previously friendly countries is a different matter, at that surely occurred. Most of the Iranian armament was American in 1980, for example. The Shah _was_ our boy, There is no argument with this. But, I don't think that's what you are talking about when you said that companies being unable to ship weapons without the government knowing strains credibility. So, let me look at an example in the few tons category, to see the verisimilitude of this type of shipment. TOW missiles sound like a good example, because they were the main sale in the Iran-Contra scandal. It is possible to ship 100 TOW missiles in a falsely marked shipping container without governmental authorities knowing. But, that's a large enough shipment so that there is a real risk of non-conspirators within Raytheon (the manufacturer) seeing something suspicious. Further, this scenario would require this company with 20 billion/year in sales, and 1.2 billion in profits to risk it for a sale of equipment with a market value less than 1 million. Even with a factor of 10 markup (which is reasonably high for black market), the profits should be no more than 7.5 million. That's chump change compared to what they risk. So, yes, I think it is unlikely for Raytheon to sell TOW missiles under the table without the knowledge of the government. I picked this because this was the main sale in the Iran-Contra scandal. You are welcome to suggest other arms that US companies might be selling to Iran, N. Korea, Russia, China, Syria, etc. right now that you think would be a better example...and we can consider those Speaking of Iran-Contra, let's go up to that scale to a larger sale of similar weapons. According to the Walsh report http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm <quote> Amount Charged for U.S. Weapons to Iran and Israel.....$30.3 <end quote> I'll take this as the magnitude of the sales to Iran (directly and indirectly) over several years. If you have other data to present, I'll look at them, but I think the official investigation report is a good source. And, of course, this was found out. Now, I'll grant that it is possible that other programs, of similar magnitude, have been successfully and covertly run. But, as the size of the program increases, it becomes harder to hide. For example, let's say cruise missiles were sold, as the next step up we would consider. These weigh about 1.5 tons apiece and cost about 1.5 million apiece. How many cruise missiles do you think that a small group of government officials could sell without a lot of people not in on the program getting very suspicious. Inventories are not perfect, of course, but do you think that, say, 100 of these could be diverted without anyone noticing? I don't. I think the Iran-Contra affair was close to the maximum size for secret arms sales that stay secret. One aspect of this is that the size of the trail increases with the size of the sale. It is true that hundreds of millions in losses can be hidden for a while by playing with the books. But, when it comes to hard, tangible evidence, it would be hard to keep government accountants from noticing hundreds of millions of stuff being produced, shipped, and then "lost." And, I was discussing the next step up, billions. Do you think that a small group within the executive branch could arrange for the sale of billions of dollars worth of equipment with no one else being the wiser? The fact that we have billions going to unpublicized weapons programs doesn't provide a precedent, BTW. Everyone knows that, they just don't know the details. The thousands of people involved know something is going on, they just keep quiet about the details, as they are legally required to. These programs have Congressional oversight, etc. Well, that's fairly long, but it does outline my understanding. I'd be curious to see how yours differs. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
