Would you like to start your own army, or perhaps terrorist organization, but can’t quite get hold of all the materials you need? Looking to build weapons of mass destruction but the parts for your chemical factory are too hard to find? Not to worry, for now you can buy just about everything you need.
From the U.S. Department of Defense.
At pennies on the dollar.
Auditors from the Government Accountability Office, posing as private citizens, were able to purchase from the DoD sensitive military equipment such as “ceramic body armor inserts currently used by deployed troops, a time selector unit used to ensure the accuracy of computer-based equipment, such as global positioning systems and system-level clocks, a universal frequency counter used to ensure that the frequency of communication gear is running at the expected rate, two guided missile radar test sets, at least 12 digital microcircuits used in F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft, and numerous other sensitive electronic parts.”
And if that’s not enough, DoD will just give away its excess inventory to government contractors. For free. Which means you, like the auditors, could just walk into a warehouse, say you’re with some contractor or other, and walk out with “two launcher mounts for shoulder-fired guided missiles, several types of body armor, a digital signal converter used in naval electronic surveillance, an all-band antenna used to track aircraft, six circuit cards used in computerized Navy systems, and several other items in use by the military services.” That’s $1.1 million worth of stuff absolutely free for the asking.
Oh, and some of this stuff is brand new. In testimony before Congress Tuesday, Gregory D. Kutz, GAO’s Managing Director of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations, told of how auditors purchased for pennies on the dollar brand new, unused equipment that military units had to pay full price for.
We also made several undercover purchases of new, unused A-condition excess DOD items, including wet-weather parkas, cold-weather desert camouflage parkas, a portable field x-ray processing enclosure, high-security locks used to secure the back bay of logistics trucks, a gasoline engine, and a refrigerant recovery system used for servicing automotive vehicles. The items we purchased at DOD liquidation sales were being ordered from supply inventory by military units at or near the time of our purchases and for one supply depot stocked item — the portable x-ray enclosure — no items were in stock when we made our purchase. At the time of our purchase, DOD’s liquidation contractor sold 40 of these x-ray enclosures with a total reported acquisition cost of $289,400 for a liquidation sales price of $2,914 — about a penny on the dollar. In another example, we purchased a gasoline engine in March 2006 for $355. The Marine Corps ordered 4 of these gas engines from DLA supply inventory in June 2006 and paid $3,119 each for them. At the time of our undercover purchase, 20 identical gasoline engines with a reported acquisition cost of $62,380 were sold to the public for a total liquidation sales price of $6,221. — DOD Excess Property: Control Breakdowns Present Significant Security Risk and Continuing Waste and Inefficiency (PDF)
In a separate report (PDF) released Tuesday, GAO documented many other purchases it made from DoD excess inventory, something anyone can do by finding the Web site where the inventory is sold. It said that poor security at Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office warehouses allowed anyone to walk out with free stuff by claiming to be a government contractor and that poor internal controls allowed sensitive military equipment to make it onto liquidation Web sites where anyone could buy it.
Needless to say, Congress hit the roof. Rep. Christopher Shays, chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, called it “an outrage” at Tuesday’s hearing.
But a 2003 GAO report not made available to the public was even more explicit about the ongoing problem, according to the Project on Government Oversight.
According to the report (PDF): “Many items needed to establish a laboratory for making biological warfare agents were being sold on the Internet to the public from DOD’s excess property inventory for pennies on the dollar, making them both easy and economical to obtain. Although production of biological warfare agents requires a high degree of expertise, public sales of these DOD excess items increase the risk that terrorists could obtain and use them to produce and deliver biological agents within the U.S.” — Project on Government Oversight
Yes, this really has been a problem for that long — even longer, in fact. I think it’s time to go shopping.
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gm
Jul 27, 2006
It’s been going on for longer that. I remember back in the early 90s or even the 80s, I can’t remember exactly, some guy bought a uranium post processing plant at a government auction. It was labeled as “scrap metal”. His original intention was to sell it as scrap to some metal dealer until he figured out what it was. He was found out when he was trying to broker a deal to sell it to some other country. I seem to racall there was a piece on 60 mins about it too.
gm
Jul 27, 2006
Poking around on the web sight, I noticed there are alot of computers. I wonder how many of the hard drives have been wiped properly?
Michael Hampton
Jul 27, 2006
All of the computers I saw had had their hard drives removed entirely.
Lori Price
Jul 27, 2006
I am linking “Pentagon sells excess military gear to anybody” to the Citizens For Legitimate Government website http://www.legitgov.org/ and cited in Friday’s CLG newsletter.
BTW, I am waiting for the treason trials of Bush, Cheney Halliburton, Rumsfeld and Rove to begin.
Cheers,
Lori R. Price
Gen. Mgr.
Citizens For Legitimate Government
http://www.legitgov.org/
TheMan
Jul 27, 2006
This is simply a cover story to divert attention from something else. While these kind of things are bad there is nothing that can be done about it under the current procurement system. People have been making jokes about it since WWI.
The root of the problem lies directly with congressional oversight and blindsight. A business from your district is bidding for some item, the business man contacts his congressional people to see if they can help. They then go to work spending your hard earned money pusing to get the business the contract. (It looks good for them, they claim they created jobs in their district, the business man puts money in their campaign coffers and now owes them a favor.)
The man in the field has to order 1000 pieces of X to get the 100 he needs. But the order was placed and now there are 900 pieces of X in the system somewhere. Sometimes the supply officer gets all he asks for so he uses the extra to barter for the things he doesn’t get.
By and large most things get used. Many cost more than they should but for the size of the government purchasing the amount of actual surplus is pretty low. (with a couple of exceptions. the draw down after major conflicts when there is lots of equipment that is excess and unused. also when the government phases out a product like the jeep for the hummer.)
The outrage shouldn’t be the small amount of surplus but the outrageous price gouging and the problems with logistics that require supply officers to order more than they need. But as long as the system works the way it does it will continue to happen.
John Wayne
Nov 21, 2006
As a devoted libertarian, I see no reason why the sale of items such as ceramic body armor plates (an example mentioned in the article) to private citizens is offensive to liberty. While the federal government is certainly the greatest threat to Americans’ freedom, the sale of such military equipment to US citizens is a GOOD thing (unless they’re ripping people off or the equipment is defective, of course). That stuff could be very useful if we ever have to take up arms against the government in a guerrilla war.
Folks, all the words in the world cannot do the slightest thing to protect freedom. Only naked FORCE can do that. Its use shouldn’t be something we hope for, but we’d darn well better be prepared to use it. Rifles and body armor are crucial equipment that no true libertarian will ever go without.
Michael Hampton
Nov 21, 2006
The problem here is not the sale of the items to the public. I’m all for that.
The problem here is that the public already paid full price (or more!) for the items through violent taxation and the stuff wound up on eBay, or just walking out via five-finger discount.
The solution, of course, is to skip the taxation and the DoD and just sell the stuff direct to the public.
Jan 28, 2007
Military gives police free surplus equipment - Homeland Stupidity
Jeff
Feb 18, 2008
Sweet, now that you put this up, want to give out the best places to go get some of this stuff? Quit whining about it and lets get this stuff into american hands and keep it that way.
Michael Hampton
Feb 18, 2008
I already did. It’s not my fault if you are too stupid to read before making idiotic comments like that.
John
Mar 05, 2010
I disagree with the characterization of “anybody” and the implication that the DOD would sell items that are critical to national security to a terrorist organization. They apply a more stringent anti-fraud practices to each purchase than the private sector. I’m just saying there are checks in place, but they may not be obvious.
Michael Hampton
Mar 05, 2010
You disagree with documented facts? Okay…