By Kristin Roberts
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military mistakenly shippedfour fuses for nuclear missiles to Taiwan in 2006 and nevercaught the error, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, acknowledgingan incident likely to rile China.
The military was supposed to ship helicopter batteries toTaiwan, but instead sent fuses used as part of the triggermechanism on Minuteman missiles. Taiwan returned the parts toU.S. custody last week.
No nuclear material was shipped to Taiwan, Pentagonofficials said.
The problem went unnoticed until Taiwan realized it did nothave the helicopter batteries it ordered and reported the issueto the United States, U.S. officials said.
The United States has notified China, which claims theself-ruled island as its own, and is modernizing its militaryto close the technology gap with Taiwan's mainly U.S. weapons.The two sides have been run separately since 1949, and Beijinghas never renounced the use of force to bring the island underits control.
"The secretary of defence is taking this very seriously. Weare all taking this very seriously," Air Force SecretaryMichael Wynne said.
"Though this was not and could not be construed as nuclearmaterial ... I would tell you that we are very concerned aboutit," he told reporters at the Pentagon.
The fuse shipment marks the Pentagon's second embarrassingmisplacement of nuclear or nuclear-related equipment announcedin the past year. An Air Force bomber last year mistakenly flewover the United States with nuclear warheads.
The Defense Department has ordered the Navy and Air Forceto take inventory of all nuclear and nuclear-associatedequipment and material and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gateshas ordered an investigation into the fuse incident, said RyanHenry, principle deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.
The United States may have violated international law orinternational arms agreements with the shipment.
"That's under analysis now," Henry said. "If there wassomething that was amiss, it clearly was not intentional."
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What led to the misfired fuse shipment is still unclear,Henry and Wynne said. The Pentagon also does not yet know whowas responsible.
The fuses, which send an electronic signal to the weaponthat starts the nuclear weapon's trigger process, are among aclass of sensitive equipment that must be accounted for on aquarterly basis.
Based on the information now known, the four fuses, whichdo not look like helicopter batteries, were wrongly placed inan unclassified storage area. They were then shipped in late2006 to Taiwan, which placed them in storage.
When Taiwan realized it had received the incorrectshipment, it notified the U.S. military. Wynne would not saywhen Taiwan first reported the problem.
U.S. military officials did not understand the nature ofthe problem until last week.
"We on our side thought we were talking about differentsorts of batteries. There was an effort to resolve andreimburse them. It wasn't until this past week that we becameaware that they had something akin to a nose-cone assembly,"Henry said.
"So there were early communications but we thought we werehearing one thing. In reality they were saying somethingdifferent."
Gates and President George W. Bush were told on Friday, theday the fuses were returned to U.S. custody, officials said.
(Editing by Patricia Zengerle)