With profound apologies to Mel Brooks, it’s springtime for Muammar in Libya, winter for Hugo Chavez! No, that’s not the latest lyric from a Broadway hit; rather it’s a reference to a notice of a final rule issued by DDTC that appeared in the February 7 Federal Register. Under the new rule, DDTC added Venezuela to the list of proscribed countries under section 126.1(a) of the ITAR while loosening the previous arms embargo that had been in place against Libya.

Libya was removed from the list of countries in section 126.1(a) subject to a general policy of denial. Under the new rule, Libya has been moved to its own new section — 126.1(k) — which still retains the general policy of denial with two major exceptions to be determined on a case-by-case basis:

(1) Non-lethal defense articles and defense services,

(2) Non-lethal safety-of-use defense articles (e.g., cartridge actuated devices, propellant actuated devices and technical manuals for military aircraft for purposes of enhancing the safety of the aircrew) as spare parts for lethal end-items.

If that language seems both familiar and opaque to you — at least as far as the meaning of “non-lethal safety-of-use defense articles” — it’s because these are the two exceptions that used to be in place for Indonesia. In that context, “non-lethal safety-of-use defense articles” was intended by DDTC to refer to things such as aircraft ejection seats. Personally I can’t wait to tell someone riding in a car with me to fasten their “non-lethal safety-of-use restraint items.”

Venezuela’s addition to the list of countries in section 126.1(a) of the ITAR shouldn’t come as surprise to anyone who hasn’t been stranded on an ice floe without a satellite phone for the past year or so. It probably didn’t help that Chavez made the whiff of sulfur remark at the U.N. last September, but the ball really had already started rolling for Venezuela on August 17, 2006, when the DDTC announced a general policy of denial for Venezuela and the revocation of all existing licenses. The addition of Venezuela to the list in section 126.1(a) doesn’t represent a substantive change in policy but is mostly a housekeeping matter.

Last week a Portland, Oregon food additive broker learned the hard way that he should have stuck to MSG and not gotten involved in exporting silver-zinc batteries. It seems that the batteries in question are used to power the Hawk missile and were ultimately destined for Iran. So Robert Caldwell was arrested in a luxury hotel in San Antonio after he tried to buy the batteries from an undercover ICE agent on behalf of a U.K. citizen, still at large, who wanted them shipped to Iran by way of the Netherlands.

A copy of the ICE agent’s affidavit in support of the criminal complaint against Caldwell is interesting reading, not the least because of the ICE agent’s frequent and mistaken reference to the DDTC as “the ODTC.” According to the affidavit, Caldwell was attempting to buy the batteries on behalf of Christopher Tappin, a U.K. citizen and director of Brooklands Overseas Services. Caldwell contacted an undercover agent to arrange for a purchase of Eagle Pilcher Silver Zinc batteries GAP-4328. The agent then sent Caldwell a pro-forma invoice for the batteries indicating that export of the batteries without a DDTC license was prohibited. When Caldwell next spoke with the agent he expressed concern about the export restriction on the pro-forma invoice. Somehow or another (and we can only speculate here), the agent alleviated Caldwell’s concerns, since Caldwell sent to the agent a purchase order for the batteries, inaccurately describing them as “Tideland gap inert non-spillable reserve batteries.” The agent and Caldwell then met in a San Antonio hotel. During that meeting Caldwell gave the agent a check for the batteries, and, instead of the batteries, got a pair of handcuffs instead.

One can’t help but get the impression from the affidavit that Caldwell, more accustomed to dealing with Red Dye No. 6 than missile batteries, may have gotten in over his head and may well have had his well-founded anxieties about the export alleviated by the ICE undercover agent.

Nor is the USML status of the Eagle Picher batteries involved entirely clear. The affidavit claims that the batteries fall under Category IV(h) of the USML and then mistakenly asserts that this makes the batteries “significant military equipment.” Apparently the agent doesn’t know what those asterisks on the USML mean. But I’m not even certain that the batteries are appropriately placed in Category IV(h) which would require that they be specifically designed or modified for military use. If these batteries are still being sold, as they obviously are, they must have other uses than powering the discontinued Hawk missile. Of course, since Eagle-Picher lists its line of Silver Zinc batteries under its line of “defense and space power” products, I would counsel an export license even if the USML status of the batteries isn’t entirely clear.