The Defense Department’s effort to block Iran from obtaining much-needed hardware for its fleet of F-14 Tomcat fighter jets has led the military to pull far more than parts from F-14s out of its surplus auctions.

The Pentagon’s retired F-14s contain roughly 76,000 components. Many of those parts are usable on other planes and until this year, were sold by the military on the surplus market.

The Defense Department in January halted the sale of all parts from its Tomcats. On Thursday, it disclosed that the suspension went far beyond items from F-14s, and actually sweeps in 163,000 types of components, including parts from other planes and any support equipment that could be used in connection with Tomcats.

“You’re talking about things like the nuts and bolts … to military-unique and -specific things, to ground equipment, to igniters and engine parts,” said Dawn Dearden, spokeswoman for the Defense Logistics Agency, or DLA.

“We want to make sure that we’re doing the prudent thing here, we want to make sure that we hold onto everything that could be used on the F-14,” she said.

Posted: 04|13|07 at 7:53 am. Filed under: US News.