WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has announced that it mistakenly shipped non-nuclear ballistic missile components to Taiwan from a U.S. Air Force base in Wyoming.
It said the items have been returned to the United States.
At a news conference, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said Tuesday that the misshipped items were four nose cone assemblies for ballistic missiles. He also said it was sent instead of helicopter batteries that had been ordered by Taiwan, he said.
Wynne said the matter is under investigation.
Ryan Henry, the No. 2 policy official in the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said President Bush was notified of the mistake and the actions to recover the items. Henry called the mistake "disconcerting" and intolerable.
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UPDATE (3/25/08 3:48pm CST)Via NYTimes -
Instead of sending helicopter batteries, the United States shipped four electrical fuses for Minuteman nuclear missile warheads to Taiwan, a mistake that was discovered only last week — a year and a half after the erroneous shipment, Pentagon officials disclosed on Tuesday.
Officials said the nose-cone fuses contained no nuclear material, and were similar in function to the ones used for conventional munitions, although these were designed specifically to send an electrical signal to the trigger of the MK-12 nuclear warhead as it was approaching the ground.
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