Panel to Probe Defense Supply System Security

A congressional investigation into the security of the defense supply system was announced Monday after fresh disclosures on the disappearance of equipment from the San Diego-based aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.

“The American taxpayer is being robbed and national security is being threatened by these actions,” said Rep. Duncan L. Hunter (R-Coronado) in a statement disclosing that the House Armed Services sea power subcommittee, of which he is a member, will conduct hearings on possible new safeguards to protect the massive supply system.

His announcement came one day after The Times reported details of supply system abuses detected by a Navy auditor, and one week after federal authorities in San Diego disclosed they had cracked an international ring that had diverted stolen Navy equipment to Iran.

Missile Components

The smuggled equipment included sophisticated parts for the F-14 Tomcat fighter and components for the Navy’s Phoenix missile system, according to a federal affidavit describing the stolen material as among “the most sophisticated combat weaponry known to the free world.”

“If $5-million worth of F-14 parts can be stolen from one aircraft carrier, imagine the potential for abuse that exists Navy-wide and throughout the Department of Defense,” Hunter said in a letter to Rep. Charles E. Bennett (D-Fla.), chairman of the sea power subcommittee.

A Bennett aide confirmed that the subcommittee “plans to have some sort of investigation” on the supply system and said hearings probably would be held in September or October. Hunter said the hearings should evaluate the security of the supply system, explore modernization of the defense logistics computer network and examine “establishment of a local-level security program to monitor supplies more carefully.”

Preliminary Inquiry

A House Armed Services investigations subcommittee headed by Rep. Bill Nichols (D-Ala.) already has been conducting a preliminary inquiry based in part on information supplied by Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego).

Federal investigators last weekend received extensive details of disarray in the Kitty Hawk’s supply system from Petty Officer 1st Class Robert Jackson, who served as an auditor on the carrier. In his 25-page statement and 1,100 pages of documents Jackson cited widespread instances of fraud, theft and waste, including cases in which sailors dumped equipment overboard rather than fill out paper work to return surplus supplies.

In another development Monday, a federal prosecutor said a sailor charged with stealing sophisticated aircraft equipment that was to be shipped to Iran was so brazen that he used the phone on the deck of a U.S. warship to tell a contact that he had procured the parts.

Antonio G. Rodriguez, an aviation storekeeper on the amphibious assault ship Belleau Wood, made “several” calls from the ship to Franklin P. Agustin, who headed a smuggling ring that sold stolen military aircraft equipment to the Iranians, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Phillip Halpern.

Rodriguez, 38, was arrested Sunday by FBI agents at the Naval Submarine Base in Bangor, Wash.

Halpern said Rodriguez, a native of the Philippines living in San Diego, was AWOL at the time of his arrest. He is the seventh person and second active-duty sailor arrested in the case.

“It was revealed in conversations between Rodriguez and Agustin that were electronically intercepted that he (Rodriguez) was involved in the stealing of military parts. When we traced the calls made to Agustin, we found that they were made from the deck of the Belleau Wood,” Halpern said.