First Dick Cheney rejects massive concession package from Iran, then then Pentagon sells them fighter jet parts.

Iran offered the US a package of concessions in 2003, but it was rejected, a senior former US official has told the BBC’s Newsnight programme.
Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion.

Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility.

But Vice-President Dick Cheney’s office rejected the plan, the official said.

The offers came in a letter, seen by Newsnight, which was unsigned but which the US state department apparently believed to have been approved by the highest authorities.

In return for its concessions, Tehran asked Washington to end its hostility, to end sanctions, and to disband the Iranian rebel group the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq and repatriate its members.

Sen. John Kerry on Thursday called for an investigation into security weaknesses in the Defense Department’s surplus sales that have let buyers for Iran and China acquire aircraft parts and other valuable military gear.

The Massachusetts Democrat sought an inquiry by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after The Associated Press reported that in several instances middlemen for the countries had exploited security flaws to acquire sensitive surplus.

The surplus sales include parts for F-14 “Tomcat” fighter jets, a plane retired last year by the United States and now flown only by Iran. Iran bought the jets in the 1970s before the U.S. government banned most exports, including defense-related sales, to the Mideast country.



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