According to one website, accommodations in Juba, the regional capital of Southern Sudan, are “not for the faint-hearted.” Of the eleven “hotels” in Juba listed by the site , most are tent camps. Some huts are available if you want to splurge. Most people will pray for a room at the Equatoria which actually boasts a restaurant.

Many lucky defense contractors will soon be learning first hand the pleasures of Juba because the State Department, effective January 17, has partially lifted the arms embargo against Sudan. Under the determination published today in the Federal Register, the State Department has authorized the provision of

non-lethal military equipment and related defense services (hereafter ‘‘assistance’’) to the Government of Southern Sudan for the purpose of constituting a professional military force. . . .

The Bush White House had, on October 13, 2006, exempted Southern Sudan from the sanctions that had been imposed on Sudan by President Clinton in 1997. Both today’s action and the October action were outgrowths of the December 31, 2004 peace accord between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the government of Sudan in Khartoum. Under the peace accords, Southern Sudan is granted autonomy for six years with a referendum on independence after that six year period. The Bush administration had held out the possibility of the lifting of sanctions as an inducement to the peace accords. The civil war between the SPLA was premised, at least in part, on the efforts of the Muslim government in Khartoum to impose sharia on the predominantly Christian south.

Probably the first Americans to arrive in Juba will be Blackwater USA, the Virginia-based private military corporation that, before today’s notice, already had a license pending to train a military force in Southern Sudan. My guess is that the Blackwater guys are used to living in tents.

Oh, and for everyone else headed for Juba, I hear the restaurant at the Equatoria is excellent. Try the Kajaik.^*

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^*A stew made of dried fish and sorghum porridge.

Back in the 1970s when the Shah was on his throne and Iran was our friend, the U.S. sold Iran a fleet of F-14 Tomcat fighter jets. Iran is still flying them and needs parts. In fact, F-14 parts were on the top of the list of the parts delivered to Iran as part of the Iran-Contra deal. So where is Iran getting parts today? From the Pentagon apparently.

Anyone familiar with the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS) and its commercial partner Government Liquidation LLC will not find it surprising in the least that surplus F-14 parts sold by them are winding up in Iranian hands. All USML surplus parts are required to be sold with an End User Certificate that informs the buyer of export restrictions. Certain sensitive USML surplus parts are required to be demilitarized or “demilled” before sale. In more than a few instances the processing personnel at DRMS fail to do either.

According to an Associate Press story which hit the wires today, surplus F-14 Tomcat parts have been sold to middlemen acting on behalf of Iran:

In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department’s surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again – customs evidence tags still attached – to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.

The AP report provides a number of other instances of military surplus winding up in the hands of the Iranians and the Chinese.

You may also wonder what happens if someone buys a surplus USML item that doesn’t have an EUC and then exports it. Well, the exporter could go to jail. The government can be mistaken about whether an item is USML; an exporter can’t.

(Hat tip to Kevin Wolf at Bryan Cave who pointed me to the AP story.)