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 ... 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 ... say those parts made it to Iran. In [another] 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. That incident appalled even an expert on weaknesses in Pentagon surplus security controls. Sensitive military surplus items are supposed to be demilitarized or de-milled" rendered useless for military purposes or, if auctioned, sold only to buyers who promise to obey U.S. arms embargoes, export controls and other laws. 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. Investigators have found the Pentagon's inventory and sales controls rife with errors.

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