 In January 2007, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that sales of spare F-14 parts would be suspended over concerns of the parts ending up in Iran.In July 2007, the remaining American F-14s were shredded to ensure that any parts could not be acquired.Despite these measures, Iran managed to significantly increase its stocks of spare parts, increasing the number of airworthy Tomcats, although as it did not manage to obtain spare parts for the aircraft's weapon systems, the number of combat ready Tomcats was still low (seven in 2008).