The US Department of Defense (DOD) has taken action to make improvements after “unserviceable and poorly packaged” equipment and munitions were sent to Taiwan under the US Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), the department said on Friday.
The PDA is a process under which the US can send equipment and weapons from existing stocks to its allied partners in crisis situations.
In July last year, the administration of US President Joe Biden authorized as much as US$345 million in defense articles and services to be sent to Taiwan under the presidential drawdown.
Photo: Screen grab from US Department of Defense Office of Inspector General’s Web site
“Taiwan is a key security cooperation partner, and the US government is committed to ensuring that equipment delivered to this partner is sufficient for operational use,” department spokesman Pete Nguyen said.
The department would learn from this experience, which was the first of its kind, and “has taken action to improve its PDA process for Taiwan,” Nguyen said.
The response came after the department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed in its report last week that the department had provided shipments of unserviceable and poorly packaged equipment and munitions to Taiwan from November last year to March.
MOLDY BODY ARMOR
“We appreciate the perspective this report brings to a complex and unique issue for a critical security cooperation partner and anticipate the positive impact it will have on the department moving forward,” Nguyen said.
The department in December last year delivered to Taiwan 120 water damaged pallets, which contained wet and moldy body armor, according to personnel from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto US embassy, the OIG report said.
The pallets remained at Travis Air Force Base for more than three months because the US Army did not begin initiating requests for Special Airlift Assignment Mission flights to Taiwan until December, the OIG said.
Taiwanese authorities had to spend weeks “unpacking, drying and inventorying the wet and moldy equipment,” it said.
REVIEW
In the same month, the Ministry of National Defense issued a letter to the AIT stating that Taiwan received 2.7 million rounds of ammunition from the department, including some that were expired, in a mix of original, loose and incorrect packaging, it said.
“The DOD did not effectively or efficiently implement accountability and quality controls for items delivered to Taiwan,” it said in the report, adding that those actions “inhibit the DOD’s ability to achieve established security cooperation goals and may lead to loss of partner confidence in the United States.”
The ministry on Friday said the shipments of equipment and munitions have been jointly reviewed and handled accordingly by Taiwan and the US, without elaborating.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS