To thwart Iran, Pentagon will destroy old jets

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to destroy its dozens of retired F-14 fighter jets to deny Iran a source for desperately needed spare parts.

Within a day, a $38 million fighter jet that once soared as a showpiece of U.S. air power can be reduced to shreds of twisted metal at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz., the military's aircraft cemetery. Last month, a contractor finished the first phase of the effort, shredding roughly two dozen.

When it retired the F-14 last fall, the Defense Department intended to destroy spare parts unique to the Tomcat but sell thousands of others that could be used on other aircraft. It suspended sales of all F-14 parts after The Associated Press reported in January that buyers for Iran, China and other countries had exploited gaps in surplus-sale security to acquire sensitive U.S. military gear, including F-14 parts.

Among other tactics, middlemen for the countries misrepresented themselves to gain access to Defense Department auctions or bought sensitive surplus from U.S. companies that had acquired it from the Pentagon sales and weren't supposed to allow its export.

Investigators also found sensitive items accidentally slipping into surplus auctions rather than being destroyed as they were supposed to be.

Iran is the only country trying to keep Tomcats airworthy. The United States let Iran buy the F-14s in the 1970s when it was an ally, long before President Bush named it part of an "axis of evil." Bush accuses Iran of financing terrorism and trying to develop nuclear weapons.

National-security experts say that although Iran is aggressively seeking parts for its fleet, even if it could get its Tomcats off the ground, it could do little with them except perhaps make mischief in the region.

"Those planes as they age are maybe the equivalent of Chevrolets in Cuba. They become relics of a past era," said Larry Johnson, a former deputy chief of counterterrorism at the State Department in President George H.W. Bush's administration.

"Even if they can put them in the air, they are going to face more advanced weapons systems," Johnson added.

But Graham Allison, an assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration and now director of Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, sees value in the demolition as an intimidation tactic.

"I think actually it can have an important symbolic effect in communication that these crazy Americans are so capable, that they have so many aircraft, that they can take airplanes that are three generations back and put them through some fantastic machine that eats them up," Allison said.

At last count, the military's boneyard in Arizona held 165 Tomcats, believed to be the only ones left out of 633 produced for the Navy. The others were scavenged for parts,, went to museums or crashed, said a spokeswoman for the air base, Teresa Vanden-Heuvel.

The Navy plans to destroy all the remaining jets, Lt. Bashon Mann said.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., considers the F-14 demolitions a good effort but wants to go further and outlaw the sale of Tomcat parts to anyone except museums. Wyden sponsored legislation that also would ban export licenses for F-14 components, which he believes will be more effective than Pentagon policies that he said have changed over time.

"I don't think internal rules — these internal initiatives — based on the track record of the Department of Defense, are sufficient," Wyden said.

The House passed similar legislation in June; a Senate vote is expected later this summer. The White House hasn't said whether Bush backs it.