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Scary: Advanced US Missile Went Missing; Where It Surfaced Has Officials Panicked
A Hellfire missile used by the United States for a NATO training exercise in Europe in 2014 never made it back to America. Instead, the missile was shipped to Cuba where it remains, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing State Department sources.
Although the missile was inert, U.S. sources said shipping such a sophisticated weapon to Cuba at a time when it and the U.S. had no diplomatic ties “would be among the worst mistakes of its kind in U.S. military history,” the Journal reported.
Officials said they were less concerned about Cuba making its own missiles than the fact sensors and guidance equipment on the high tech missile could have been shared with nations such as North Korea, Russia, China or terrorist groups such as ISIS.
“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,” Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation said, according to the Journal.
The officials who spoke to the Journal said the missile was being shipped from Germany and was mistakenly flown to Paris, and then to Cuba.
“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,” one U.S. official told the Journal.
Another U.S. official told the Associated Press the government is blaming manufacturer Lockheed-Martin’s freight forwarders.
American officials have also been asking Cuba to return the missile, but with no results. America and Cuba restored diplomatic relations last year for the first time in more than 50 years.
If the missile was sent to Cuba on purpose, it would be a violation of the Arms Export Control Act and of the Cuban sanctions laws.
“Mis-shipments happen all the time because of the amount and volume of the defense trade,” a State Department official said, according to the Journal. The missile was found to be missing at a time when the U.S. and Cuba were holding secret negotiations to normalize relations.
The Hellfire is a laser-guided, air-to-surface missile weighing about 100 pounds. Deployed from Apache helicopters or Predator drones, the Hellfire received its name from the Pentagon’s specification for a “helicopter-launched, fire and forget” missile.
h/t: Wall Street Journal
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/scary-advanced-u-s-missile-went-missing-where-it-surfaced-has-officials-panicked/
