Copyright © 2002 The International
Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
Military shipments to Asia and the Middle East have been stepped up since the United States lifted sanctions on five countries after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, even though critics have raised diplomatic concerns about the transfer of radars, transport planes, and other gear. India, for example, imports a half-billion dollars' worth of weapons annually from all sources and has purchased jet-fighter parts, night-vision sights and antiaircraft ammunition directly from U.S. contractors lately, according to export records. It is also looking at the Patriot air-defense missile system made by Raytheon Co. India's rival, Pakistan, has bought anti-missile systems made by BAE Systems North America and spare parts for its F-16 fighters made by Lockheed Martin Corp. Last year, the Pentagon gave the two countries permission to buy radar and sensor systems valued at as much as $355 million from a joint venture of Raytheon and Thales SA of France and from Lockheed Martin and TCOM LP, another U.S.-based maker. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan will each share in about $100 million in annual U.S. aid to the region meant for military training and equipment purchases. While the spending is relatively modest for the U.S. defense industry, foreign sales are often more profitable for it because they do not include new development costs. David Baker, a retired air force general who directs a Charles Schwab Co. research unit in Washington, said the war in Iraq amounted to an advertisement for U.S. planes, tanks and command-and-control infrastructure, all of which will be of interest to buyers after the hostilities end. "I'd be surprised if countries like Pakistan and Jordan weren't stocking up on U.S. gear," Baker said. "There's a real upside here, which is dollars hitting the defense sector that aren't coming out of the U.S. budget." Iraq might soon be buying American, too. In its proposed supplemental budget last month, the Bush administration asked for authority to sell munitions to Iraq "if the president determines that the export of such item is in the national interest of the United States." Currently, Congress would need to approve any arms deals with Iraq. A House committee has narrowed the bill so that it would apply only to Iraqi purchases of nonlethal military gear such as chemical-protection suits, but the provision remained in a Senate bill as of Friday. A White House spokesman was not available to explain the administration's thinking. Iraq spent $1.6 million on U.S. goods in 1990, the last year it was allowed to buy any U.S. arms, but the country could receive millions of dollars in foreign aid after the war. Rachel Stohl, an analyst at the Center for Defense Information, a Democratic-leaning research group in Washington, said she did not understand the White House's rush to facilitate weapon sales to Iraq, because it will take years to rebuild the country politically. "We could be sending them more weapons even before we know who's really on our side," she said. Stohl and other critics worry that the United States loses control over any arms it sells. For instance, last week the U.S. State Department placed sanctions on a Pakistani company that it said had helped obtain long-range missiles illegally from North Korea. According to news accounts, the missiles were flown to Pakistan aboard a C-130 Hercules cargo plane made by Lockheed Martin. In July, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency indicated its approval of the sale of six used C-130s and spare parts to Pakistan valued at as much as $75 million. "The problem is, you don't actually know what they're going to be used for once you've sold the system," said Tamar Gabelnick, who monitors arms sales for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. Others say weapons sales could encourage foreigners to pay more heed to U.S. views and discourage them from pursuing nuclear arms. "It's a tangible form of confidence-building for these governments," said Baker Spring, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation analyst. U.S. sanctions were imposed on India and Pakistan in 1998 because of their nuclear tests and against three former Soviet republics, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan, because of human rights concerns. Pakistan faced earlier sanctions. In February, Raytheon agreed to pay $25 million to settle federal allegations that its employees had tried to evade sanctions by selling long-range radio systems to Pakistan. None of these countries was a major U.S. customer previously. The State Department estimates arms sales to Pakistan were only $70 million annually in the 1990s, mainly in spare parts. Under export laws, the Pentagon's cooperation agency must consider the security implications of major sales. In its public notices last year, the agency stated the radar and C-130 deals would not affect the "basic military balance in the region." Outsiders like Gabelnick say they'd like a fuller explanation of why these systems won't contribute to tensions such as those along the India-Pakistan border. The dozen truck-mounted Firefinder radars India bought from a joint venture of Raytheon and France's Thales SA, for instance, are called "counterbattery" systems because they quickly pick out the source of enemy artillery fire up to 30 kilometers away. "Friendly fire can then neutralize further fire from those weapons," according to Raytheon's Web site. Firefinders accompany US Army forces in Iraq. Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune |