An inert U.S. Hellfire missile sent to Europe for training
purposes was wrongly shipped from there to Cuba in 2014, said
people familiar with the matter, a loss of sensitive military
technology that ranks among the worst-known incidents of its
kind.
The unintended delivery of the missile to Cuba has confounded
investigators and experts who work in a regulatory system designed
to prevent precisely such equipment from falling into the wrong
hands, said those familiar with the matter.
For more than a year, amid a historic thawing of relations
between the U.S. and Cuba, American authorities have tried to get
the Cuban government to return the missile, said people familiar
with the matter. At the same time, federal investigators have been
tracing the paper trail of the wayward Hellfire to determine if its
arrival in Cuba was the work of criminals or spies, or the result
of a series of blunders, these people said.
Hellfires are air-to-ground missiles, often fired from
helicopters. They were first designed as antitank weapons decades
ago, but have been modernized to become an important part of the
U.S. government's antiterrorism arsenal, often fired from Predator
drones to carry out lethal attacks on targets in countries
including Yemen and Pakistan, said people familiar with the
technology.
This particular missile didn't contain explosives, but U.S.
officials worry that Cuba could share the sensors and targeting
technology inside it with nations like China, North Korea or
Russia, these people said. Officials don't suspect Cuba is likely
to try to take apart the missile on its own and try to develop
similar weapons technology, these people said. It is unclear
whether a U.S. adversary has ever obtained such knowledge of a
Hellfire.
U.S. officials said the case of the missing missile, while
highly unusual, points to long-standing concerns about the security
of international commercial shipping and the difficulty of keeping
close tabs on important items.
"Did someone take a bribe to send it somewhere else? Was it an
intelligence operation, or just a series of mistakes? That's what
we've been trying to figure out," said one U.S. official.
The government response to the missing missile has been
two-pronged. First, it has tried to get the missile back. Second,
officials want to determine who, if anyone, intentionally sent it
off course. That effort has gone slowly, the people familiar with
the probe said, in large part because the most important clues are
in Europe, where evidence-gathering is subject to transnational
diplomatic requests that can take years to complete.
The missile was sent from Orlando International Airport in early
2014 to be used in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization military
exercise, said the people familiar with the case. As with other
sensitive military gear, the shipping crate was clearly marked as
containing material subject to rigorous export controls, and that
shipping information would have made clear to anyone handling it
that it wasn't regular cargo, these people said.
The missile was sent by its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin Corp.,
after the company got permission from the State Department, which
oversees the sharing of sensitive military technology with
allies.
A Lockheed Martin spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter,
referring queries to U.S. government officials.
State Dept. spokesman John Kirby said the agency "is restricted
under federal law and regulations from commenting on defense trade
licensing and compliance issues."
The people familiar with the case said the missile was sent to
Spain and used in the military exercise. But for reasons that are
still unclear, after it was packed up, it began a roundabout trip
through Europe, was loaded onto a truck and eventually sent to
Germany.
The missile was packaged in Rota, Spain, a U.S. official said,
where it was put into the truck belonging to another
freight-shipping firm, known by officials who track such cargo as a
"freight forwarder." That trucking company released the missile to
yet another shipping firm that was supposed to put the missile on a
flight originating in Madrid. That flight was headed to Frankfurt,
Germany, before it was to be placed on another flight bound for
Florida.
At some point, officials loading the first flight realized the
missile it expected to be loading onto the aircraft wasn't among
the cargo, the government official said. After tracing the cargo,
officials realized that the missile had been loaded onto a truck
operated by Air France, which took the missile to Charles de Gaulle
Airport in Paris. There, it was loaded onto a "mixed pallet" of
cargo and placed on an Air France flight. By the time the
freight-forwarding firm in Madrid tracked down the missile, it was
on the Air France flight, headed to Havana.
Attempts to reach Air France were unsuccessful.
When the plane landed in Havana, a local official spotted the
labeling on the shipping crate and seized it, people familiar with
the case said. Around June 2014, Lockheed Martin officials realized
the missile was missing, was likely in Cuba, and notified the State
Department, said those familiar with the matter. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agents, as well as prosecutors with the Justice
Department are now investigating to see whether the redirection of
the missile was a crime.
Several of those familiar with the case said the loss of the
Hellfire missile is the worst example they can recall of the kind
of missteps that can occur in international shipping of sensitive
military technology. While there are instances in which sensitive
technology ends up getting lost in transit, it is virtually unheard
of for such a shipment to end up in a sanctioned country like Cuba,
according to industry experts.
Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation,
said it is likely some foreign nations would like to
reverse-engineer parts of a Hellfire, such as the sensors or
targeting technology, to develop countermeasures or to improve
their own missile systems.
"Now it's a proliferation concern—someone else now understands
how it works and what may have been cutting edge for us is
deconstructed and packaged into what other players sell on the open
market—and possibly provided to countries that we wouldn't sell
to," said Mr. Singer.
The Defense Department's Joint Attack Munitions Systems project
office asked officials at the Defense Intelligence Agency to
provide an assessment of the security impacts of the lost munition
to determine the risks associated with its loss. An official at DIA
declined to comment. But a defense official confirmed that DIA has
reviewed the implications of the lost missile.
The Cuban Embassy in Washington didn't respond to multiple
messages seeking comment. Representatives at the embassies of Spain
and France didn't immediately comment, while attempts to contact
the German Embassy were unsuccessful.
Several officials and industry experts said what was most
baffling about the case was how so many shipping-company workers
who should have noticed the labeling on the shipping crate and—at a
minimum— asked questions about why it was going somewhere else
apparently allowed it to proceed along a circuitous route until it
ended up in Cuba.
If someone intentionally sent it astray, that could constitute a
violation of the Arms Export Control Act, as well as a possible
violation of Cuban sanctions laws. There are more than 25 countries
to which U.S. military exports are generally prohibited. Cuba was
added to the list in 1984.
The State Department's office of Political-Military Affairs,
which oversees exports of military hardware, regularly finds
companies to be in violation of the Arms Export Control Act for a
variety of reasons. Each year, there are about 1,500 disclosures of
potential violations to the Arms Export Control Act. Many of those
violations are because of mis-shipments, said a State Department
official, but the official said the government doesn't track the
specific number each year.
"Mis-shipments happen all the time because of the amount and
volume of the defense trade," the official added. But no official
could recall an instance when a U.S. missile was sent to a
sanctioned nation.
The Hellfire missile has been missing during the most sensitive
time in U.S.-Cuba relations in more than a generation. In June
2014, when the U.S. first realized the missile was in Cuba, the
State Department was engaged in secret negotiations to normalize
relations with Cuba, ending a standoff dating back to the
1950s.
That rapprochement culminated in a December 2014 announcement
that the two nations would normalize relations, re-establish
embassies and exchange prisoners.
If it turns out that the Hellfire was lost because of human
error, the criminal probe would end and the State Department would
have to determine whether to pursue a settlement with Lockheed
Martin over the incident.
Companies that violate export-control laws can be fined millions
of dollars and be required to address whatever issues contributed
to the problem, the State Department official said. Large defense
firms like Northrop Grumman Corp. and Boeing Co. have entered into
consent agreements over the years, according to the State
Department. Lockheed Martin has been cited in the past by State,
including in 2000 and 2008 for a total of 16 violations. In another
instance, another defense company, BAE Systems PLC, paid the
Treasury $79 million in 2011, the highest amount ever paid.
Lockheed Martin, which voluntarily disclosed the missing missile,
is cooperating with investigators, U.S. officials said.
"This is a complicated business, mistakes are inherent in
complicated businesses," the official said. "Mistakes are a part of
any human endeavor. Mistakes are made."
Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com and Gordon
Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 08, 2016 02:15 ET (07:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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