Perversion of poorly regulated commerce allowed 16 now indicted businessmen to export US-made electronic parts to Iran where they became the operating guts of IEDs used to kill American GIs in Iraq.
Today they are charged but not identified because authorities claim they were "tricked" into selling their computer chips and other hardware to cut out companies fronting for the Iranian manufacturers of the explosive devices.
The 16 foreign defendants were charged with conspiracy and violations involving the Iran Trade Embargo, the Iranian Transactions Regulations, the Export Administration Regulations and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Investigators are unable to directly link the parts to a particualar device known to have killed American troops.
In an odd marking of the 7th anniversary of 9/11, the indictment was unsealed Wednesday in Miami as the end-point of a four year investigation by the Commerce Department into a global network funneling "dual use" goods to Iran. Said goods include 12,000 Microchip brand micro-controllers, 5,000 integrated circuits and about 345 global positioning systems.
No arrests have been made. Eight individuals are at large, requiring extradition.
Mario Mancuso, undersecretary of Commerce for industry and security, said a multiagency group including Immigration and Customs Enforcement broke up a ''lethal international ring.''
In 2005, investigators found an American-made computer circuit in an unexploded roadside bomb in Iraq. Through serial numbers and shipping records, they traced the computer chip's path from its manufacturer in California to Mayrow General Trading in Dubai, according to an April New York Times article.
As far back as June 8. 2006, the Federal Register names Mayrow and several other UAE companies requiring special licensing restriction on exports and re-exports of dual use goods (those with civilian and military applications) to them.
The United States Government, including the United States
Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), has come
into the possession of information giving reason to believe, based on
specific and articulable facts, that Mayrow General Trading and its
related entities have acquired electronic components and devices
capable of being used to construct Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
These commodities have been, and may continue to be, employed in IEDs
or other explosive devices used against Coalition Forces in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
To curtail such use of these commodities in order to protect
Page 32273
Coalition Forces operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Department of
Commerce is issuing General Order No. 3, set forth in Supplement No. 1
to part 736, imposing a license requirement for export and reexports of
all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations
[*.pdf original here]
AMD of Sunnyvale, Calif., the chip manufacturer, cooperated with federal investigators and said its customers are bound by contracts not to re-export its products to Iran. It has not been charged. While no South Florida companies were named, five authorized Microchip distributors have offices in Broward County.
If this isn't a major national security issue directly impacting the lives of Americans, then what is? Here we have an example of our own industrialists being involved "inadvertently" in terrorist attacks on our own people. IEDs have killed 1,722 U.S. troops in Iraq and who knows how many in Afghanistan. It's a tragic commentary on the Bush and Republican claims that he has made America safer under his watchful vigilance.