You want something that will make you feel all warm and cozy inside?

Well, Iran, that country that America has been looking over the shoulder of from time to time, has bought forbidden equipment from no one other than our own U.S. of A.

Iran, which President Bush has labeled as part of the “axis of evil,” is apparently on the Defense Department’s buddy list when it comes to weapon sales on the global flea market.

Sales included fighter jet parts, missile components and a free fortune cookie that tells of the irony of the sales to the countries of Iran and China. In one instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran returned to business after being released from prison. He had purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran that a U.S. company had sold him in the Pentagon supermarket.

In another situation, convicted middlemen from Iran purchased F-14 “Tomcat” fighter jet parts from the Defense Department’s surplus division. Now customs agents have confiscated those parts and returned them to the Pentagon, but here’s the funny part, they were reportedly sold again with customs tags still attached to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.

“That would be evidence of a significant breakdown, in my view, in controls and processes,” said Greg Kutz, the Government Accountability Office’s head of special investigations. “It shouldn’t happen the first time, let alone the second time.”

But it did happen the first and second time. I think it’s kind of strange that a country that we are very wary of and watching almost as closely as the situation in Iraq, is the same country we are selling weapons to. Now wouldn’t it be ironic if the same weapons the United States sold to Iran were one day the same weapons they used against us? Something to rub your chin over.

Rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas totaling $1.1 million dollars were able to be purchased last year by GAO agents, who said they did so by just driving onto a base and posing as defense contractors. Nice.

According to Kutz, investigators used a fake identity to access a surplus Web site operated by a Pentagon contractor and then bought more, adding a dozen microcircuits used on F-14 fighters to their bag of goodies.

Although the phony buyers received phone calls from the Defense Department asking why they had no Social Security number or credit history, they bypassed the questions by posing a fictional utility bill and claimed to be an identity theft victim.

And despite the $57 million of the Pentagon’s public surplus sales they took in for fiscal 2005, investigators found the Pentagon’s inventory and sales controls were stricken with errors and have said their sales are closely watched by friends and foes of the U.S.

I guess the investigation is ongoing, as it should be, because if we’re selling weapons to Iran and China, who else is getting our toys? Afghanistan? Iraq?