Security Assistance

Excess defense articles are items no longer needed by the U.S. armed forces that are either sold or given to foreign countries. Because the Defense Department (DOD) lacks a data management system to track transfers of these items, it is hard to determine the number and value of excess defense articles transferred to foreign countries in any fiscal year. In addition, the military services do not routinely follow DOD's pricing directives and have sometimes understated the value of the items transferred. GAO, taking into account the unreliability of DOD data, estimates that the value of excess defense articles transferred to the seven countries in its study--Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Portugal, Morocco, and Oman--is at least $400 million so far.

GAO found that: (1) the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Defense Security Assistance Agency (DSAA) do not have an integrated data management system to account for actual transfers of EDA; (2) without a data management system, it is difficult for the services to track EDA and follow DOD pricing directives; (3) including DSAA congressional notifications, the total acquisition value of proposed EDA transfers for the seven countries between fiscal years (FY) 1990 and 1992 was $2.5 billion; (4) the total value of EDA delivered pursuant to congressional notifications between FY 1990 and FY 1992 was $400 million; and (5) DSAA acknowledges that its data are unreliable and is developing a tracking system that will require standardized input from the services.