The Defense Industry is laying the groundwork for yet another attempt to “reform” the US arms export control system. At a briefing held at the Heritage Foundation last week, Mark Esper of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) announced that the AIA is “fine tuning” Phase two of its campaign, which will, according to AIA’s newsletter, feature a “new export control law that we will draft and take to the 110th Congress next year.” Previous proposals by reform advocates have met strong resistance from Congress, but changes in congressional leadership and industry’s strategy could result in a very different outcome this time around.
(more…)

Last week President Bush signed the Fiscal Year 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations Act, which includes $40 million for the Department of Homeland Security’s Counter-MANPADS Program – a multi-year initiative launched in 2003 to evaluate the feasibility of installing anti-missile systems on commercial airliners. The appropriation is nearly 10 times higher than the amount requested by the administration, and increases to $270 million the total amount appropriated for the program.

Appropriators supplemented the administration’s request for the program after proponents of anti-missile systems intervened on its behalf. In February, Rep. Steve Israel called the budget request “lip service” and accused the administration of “ma[king] a decision to effectively kill the counter-MANPADS program…” A month later, Senator Barbara Boxer sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff calling the administration’s decision to reduce funding for the program “misguided and dangerous.”
(more…)

The Arms Sales Monitoring Project has obtained, via the Freedom of Information Act, a copy of the Defense Department’s contribution to the annual “Section 655” report* on U.S. arms transfers and military assistance.

The report contains data on the five main U.S. security assistance programs: the Direct Commercial Sales Program (administered by the State Department), and the International Military Education and Training Program, Defense Drawdowns, the Excess Defense Articles Program, and the Foreign Military Sales Program (administered by the Defense Department).

While much of the data is available elsewhere, the “655 report” is unique in that it provides detailed information on the type of defense articles and services licensed through the Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) program and delivered through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Program to a particular country, not just the aggregate dollar value of these sales. The DCS and FMS sections are arranged by country (or international organization), and describe the category of defense articles/services licensed or delivered, the quantity, and the dollar value. Data on certain countries (Australia, Finland, Japan, and Taiwan), and on most missile transfers, has been redacted in the FMS section.

Data sources like the 655 report are important because transparency is essential for proper public and Congressional oversight – the sine qua non of an effective arms export control system. Scrutiny of U.S. arms export programs helps to ensure that they do not run afoul of U.S. law and that they promote the full range of America’s interests abroad, not just the narrow agendas of the White House or the implementing agencies. Without clear, complete and timely data, systematic Congressional and public oversight of U.S. arms transfers would be impossible.

The 655 report is one of several public data sources on arms sales compiled by the U.S. Government that, together, provide arguably the most complete picture of national arms sales made available by any country. Indeed, the U.S. consistently ranks No. 1 in the Small Arms Survey’s Transparency Barometer for small arms trade data.

Yet the report is far from perfect. For example, many of the item/service descriptions in the Foreign Military Sales section are vague to the point of being meaningless. Category descriptions such as “OTHER WPNS + ORDNANCE EQP” and “OTHER AMMO AND COMPONENTS” – with no explanation as to what items are included in these categories – are common throughout the section. The other big problem with the Defense Department’s sections is that they are made available to the public only in response to FOIA requests filed by the FAS. The processing time for such requests is six months or more, during which time the public is unnecessarily deprived of the data. More importantly, if the FAS were to get out of the arms trade monitoring business, the data might not be released at all.

The State Department’s report on Direct Commercial Sales is better than the FMS section in some ways and worse in others. Its category descriptions are much clearer and more specific, and State is very good about posting the report on its website shortly after delivering it to Congress. It suffers from two significant shortcomings, however. The first is its subject matter. The data in this section is for licenses issued, not items delivered. Since not all licenses result in actual deliveries, or deliveries in the amount specified in the license, the data is of limited utility to many researchers.

Secondly, the Government Accountability Office has identified reliability problems with the data on Direct Commercial Sales. In a 2005 study, the GAO found coding errors, database limitations, and inaccurate reporting practices that raise “…questions about the accuracy and reliability of data in State’s Section 655 reports to Congress.” It should be noted that this study did not examine FMS data, only DCS. A similar analysis of the FMS section might be warranted given the egregious typo that made it into last year’s report. Under India, the report logged the delivery of $3.038 billion in “radar air search EQP,” an error that was carried over not only into the country total for India but also the worldwide total. As a result of the error, the worldwide total was off by nearly 25%.

To view the 655 reports for FY05 and previous fiscal years, visit our “Government Data” page.

For more GAO reports on U.S. arms sales and arms sales reports, visit our “Government Documents” page.

*Section 655 is the section of the Foreign Assistance Act that requires the report.

In the August 9th edition of Jane’s Defense Weekly, Deputy Editor Robin Hughes reveals alleged plans by Iran to supply Hezbollah with “a steady supply of weapons systems,” including Chinese QW-1 and its own Mithaq (or Misagh) man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). The article cites unnamed western diplomats, who also claim that Iran agreed to provide, “at a later date,” several different types of Russian missiles, including the sophisticated SA-16.

Assuming the information is accurate, the missile transfers are significant for several reasons. First, the missiles are a potential threat not only to Israeli military aircraft but also commercial airliners worldwide. Hezbollah has a long history of terrorist attacks against civilian targets. According to Georgetown Professor Daniel Byman, the organization “was perhaps the world’s most active terrorist organization,” and had a hand in several high profile attacks, including the hijacking of TWA flight 847 in 1985 and the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994. Its involvement in such acts has waned in recent years, but there is no guarantee that it won’t resume these activities, or retransfer the missiles to terrorists with immediate designs on commercial airliners.

Secondly, the transfers violate a nascent but critically important international norm against the transfer of MANPADS to non-state actors, which is codified in resolutions, declarations and agreements adopted by members of several multilateral forums. Some of these agreements explicitly ban the transfer of MANPADS to non-state actors, while others do so indirectly by limiting such transfers to “foreign governments or to agents specifically authorised to act on behalf of a government after presentation of an official EUC certified by the Government of the receiving country.”
(more…)

At Thursday’s hearing on the sale of 36 F-16 aircraft to Pakistan, Assistant Secretary of State John Hillen endured tongue-lashings from several members of the House International Relations Committee (HIRC), who objected to the manner in which his bureau has managed the $5.1 billion arms package. Of particular concern was the administration’s unilateral decision to waive the customary 20-day pre-notification for major arms sales, which many members viewed as a deliberate attempt to circumvent the committee’s authority. The decision – and the confrontation it provoked – could have far-reaching consequences, not only for Congressional oversight of arms sales but also several key State Department initiatives.
(more…)

On July 13th, the Nicaraguan National Assembly voted to destroy an additional 651 of its large stockpile of shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles, bringing it one step closer to fulfilling President Enrique Bolanos’s earlier commitment to destroy Nicaragua’s entire stock of Man-portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS). The Assembly approved the plan despite opposition from the Sandinista National Liberation Front (SNLF), which led a partially successful campaign to derail the US-funded destruction initiative in early 2005.

The missiles – 2000 SA series MANPADS – are the remnants of a massive infusion of Soviet military assistance to the left-leaning Sandinista government, which was the target of a US-supported insurgency in the 1980s. The proxy wars in Central America ended shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the huge stockpiles of Soviet weapons remained – an attractive target for arms traffickers. Diversions of Nicaragua’s missiles date back at least to 1990, when Sandinistan military officers sold 8 missile launchers and 28 missiles to rebels in El Salvador. Three years later, 19 more black market missiles were discovered in the charred remains of a Managuan auto repair shop that doubled as a storage site for a large cache of illicit rockets, mines, explosives and MANPADS. The repair shop caught fire after part of the cache exploded.
(more…)

On Monday, the Bush administration announced a massive $5.1 billion arms package for Pakistan, the largest arms sale to the Indian subcontinent since US sanctions were suspended in 2001. The package includes 36 F-16 fighter jets, armaments, and upgrades for its existing fleet of F-16s. The announcement came five days after the administration officially notified Congress of the sales.

The deal is significant for many reasons. It will help to modernize Pakistan’s aging airforce, and help pave the way for an even larger fighter jet sale to India. The sale also has tremendous symbolic significance. In 1991, the first Bush Administration imposed various sanctions on Pakistan for its nuclear weapons program, the most high profile of which was the impounding of 28 F-16s purchased by Pakistan in the 1980’s. Pakistan lobbied hard for their release but the Bush and Clinton administrations held firm, and the planes came to symbolize the post-Cold War deterioration of US-Pakistani relations. Following the September 11th attacks, the US hastily sought to mend diplomatic fences with Pakistan, which has provided critical support in the War on Terror. The Bush administration immediately lifted the ban on military aid to India and Pakistan and gradually increased the quantity and sophistication of weapons exports to both countries. The F-16 sale, which still tops the list of weapons sought by the Pakistani government, signifies a completion of the rapprochement between the US and its erstwhile ally.
(more…)

Last week, lawmakers demonstrated their commitment to reining in the black market trade in deadly conventional weapons by forwarding two important bills to the full House and Senate. On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the Lugar-Obama Act (S. 2566) by voice vote and without amendment. The bill calls on the State Department to “carry out an accelerated global program” to secure or dispose of surplus and poorly secured man-portable air defense systems and other conventional weapons, and authorizes an additional $25 million in funding for the State Department to accomplish this mission. Two days later, the House International Relations Committee followed suit by passing, also by voice vote and without amendment, the “Shoulder-fired Missile Reduction Act of 2006” (HR 5333), which authorizes an additional $35 million for securing and destroying poorly secured weapons and imposes sanctions on governments that knowingly transfer MANPADS to terrorists and their state sponsors. Both bills enjoy broad bipartisan support.

A summary of HR 5333 was posted on the SSP blog on May 11th. The full text of the bill and the Lugar-Obama Act is available on the ASMP’s “Bills and Laws” page.

Yesterday Rep. Edward Royce (R-CA) introduced a far-reaching bill that, if passed, would boost US efforts to curb the threat posed by Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS).

The “Shoulder-fired Missile Reduction Act of 2006” (HR 5333), which already has 13 co-sponsors from both sides of the political aisle, contains provisions that would

**Expand US stockpile security and destruction assistance programs by authorizing $15 million for these programs in fiscal year 2007 and $20 million in FY2008 (effectively doubling current funding levels);

**Punish states that knowingly transfer missiles to terrorists by cutting off U.S. arms sales and foreign aid (except humanitarian assistance); and

**Improve Congressional understanding of the MANPADS threat and the US government’s response by requiring a report that describes US and international counter-MANPADS activities, the impact of these activities on the illicit trade in MANPADS, and the availability of these weapons to terrorists and their states sponsors.

Rep. Royce’s bill is similar in several ways to legislation introduced in April (S. 2566) by Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Barak Obama (D-IL). Both bills call for “an accelerated global program to secure, remove and eliminate” MANPADS and other conventional weapons, and both authorize additional funding for programs that carry out these activities.

The bill is the latest installment in an unprecedented global counter-MANPADS campaign that began shortly after a failed attempt by al Qaeda to shoot down an Israeli airliner in November 2002. Since then, the US and like-minded states have taken important steps to strengthen controls over MANPADS transfers, reduce the theft and diversion of missiles from insecure stockpiles, and mop up missiles already on the black market. The US is also evaluating possible anti-missile systems for installation on commercial airliners or at US airports.

For more information on the MANPADS threat and the global response, see ASMP Issue Brief #1: MANPADS Proliferation.

At a Senate hearing on the foreign aid budget on Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice underscored the importance of “…deny[ing] terrorists access to the world’s most dangerous weapons, including conventional weapons like MANPADS,” and pointed to funding increases in the President’s FY07 budget for State Department programs that “help countries counter the proliferation of dangerous weapons and materials.” While it is true that the FY07 budget request does increase funding for combating the spread of WMD, programs aimed at reducing the threat from surplus and poorly secured conventional weapons – the weapons of choice for many terrorists – actually take a (slight) hit in the President’s budget. The $8.6 million request for the State Department’s small arms/light weapons destruction fund in FY07 is $60,000 less than the program’s budget for FY06.

Below is an excerpt from Secretary Rice’s testimony, and a link to the full transcript.

Essential to winning the war on terrorism is denying our enemies the weapons of mass destruction that they seek. We must develop new tools for counter-proliferation to confront and dismantle the networks involving rogue states, outlaw scientists, and black market middlemen who make proliferation possible. We are building on the achievements of the Proliferation Security Initiative, the G-8 Global Partnership, and UN Security Council Resolution 1540. We are working to stop Iran and North Korea from succeeding in their quest for weapons of mass destruction, and we continue to do everything in our power to deny terrorists access to the world’s most dangerous weapons, including conventional weapons like MANPADS. The FY 2007 budget proposes to increase funding for the State Department’s efforts to help countries counter the proliferation of dangerous weapons and materials.

Full Transcript

FY07 nonproliferation and conventional weapons threat reduction budget request

A few months ago, physicist Jorge Hirsch [jhirsch@ucsd.edu] of the University of California, San Diego, and others, organized a petition signed by an impressive array of notable scientists. The petition condemns the administration’s new national security strategy for its over-emphasis on nuclear weapons. The petition also emphasized that just using the term “WMD” blurs the distinction between non-nuclear and nuclear weapons, which are in a class of their own. You can see the petition and a partial list of signatories here.

The FY07 Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign Operations is now available on the State Department’s website. The CBJ contains a detailed breakdown of the President’s budget request for foreign aid programs, including programs related to conventional arms threat reduction.

Of particular importance is the $8.6 million request for the State Department’s SA/LW destruction program. This amount is a slight decrease from last year’s budget of $8.663 million, and it falls far short of Congressional expectations. At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) hearing on February 9th, Senator Joseph Biden remarked that “$8 million doesn’t even get a blip on the screen,” a sentiment echoed by Senator Barak Obama, who called it “decimal dust.” State Department Undersecretary Robert Joseph acknowledged that his team could do more on conventional weapons reduction if it had more money, but warned against diverting funds from other valuable nonproliferation programs.

Few programs deliver more bang for the buck than small arms/light weapons destruction. Since the program’s founding in 2001, it has destroyed over 800,000 surplus small arms, including 17,000 deadly shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. That’s nearly a million weapons that will never, under any circumstance; end up in the hands of terrorists, criminals, or insurgents. Yet there are millions more weapons in insecure stockpiles that require immediate attention, and additional resources would allow the State Department to identify and address more of these threats, more quickly.

Prospects for expanding U.S. conventional weapons threat reduction efforts improved dramatically when SFRC chairman Richard Lugar embraced the issue last year. As a moderate, respected Republican with a long history of effective work on nonproliferation issues, Senator Lugar is in an excellent champion for this issue. He is co-sponsoring legislation (the Lugar-Obama Initiative) on conventional weapons threat reduction, and has hinted at a possible amendment to the foreign operations appropriations bill that would provide more money for these programs so that the State Department is not forced to rob Peter to pay Paul, as State Department officials like to say.

For more information on the Small Arms/Light Weapons destruction program, go to /asmp/profiles/aid/fy2007/SALWdestruction07.pdf

The text of the Lugar-Obama Initiative (S. 1949) is available at /asmp/resources/govern/109th/S1949is.htm