China Daily, December 26, 2005
US eyes big Pakistan, India arms sales (Reuters)
The Bush administration is maneuvering to balance possible big new U.S. arms sales to archrivals India and Pakistan in the new year.
In the past week, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have made separate visits, not announced in advance, to Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.
Islamabad will make up its mind in the coming year on a U.S. offer to resume F-16 fighter aircraft sales after a 16-year break, Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri was quoted by the Associated Press of Pakistan as saying after Cheney left.
Earlier this month, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kohler, head of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, said he expected Pakistan to modify buying plans because of the October 8 earthquake that killed more than 73,000 people.
"I think that what we were ready to do right before the earthquake is probably going to have to change," Kohler said in a December 7 interview with Reuters in Washington.
"We'll get back with Pakistan early in the new year and see what they want to do," he added. Before the temblor, Pakistan had asked about buying as many as 75 new F-16C/D models and 11 refurbished F-16s, Kohler said in May.
The single-engine multi-role F-16 is built by Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp. New purchases would boost a fleet of about 32 F-16s acquired before Congress cut off sales in 1990 over Pakistan's nuclear program.
In May, the Pentagon told Congress it was proposing to let Pakistan buy 300 AIM-9M-1/2 "Sidewinder" heat-seeking, air-to-air missiles and 60 Harpoon missiles with a combined value of up to $226 million.
Arms sales to India
Separately, the United States is poised to push in the new year for major arms sales to India.
The Bush administration is weighing, among other things, whether to let India buy a state-of-the-art radar system as part of a U.S. bid for a potential $5 billion contract to supply 126 multi-role fighters, Kohler said in the interview.
The possible supply of Active Electronically Scanned Array Radar, or AESA, would boost U.S. prospects against expected competition from Sweden, France and Russia. The technology is meant to let U.S. fighters detect and destroy enemy aircraft at significantly longer ranges.
An Indian purchase of either the F-16 or the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet built by Boeing Co., the other U.S. fighter on offer, would cement a sea change in U.S.-Indian bilateral ties since the end of the Cold War.
"Their pilots (would) come to our schools. We'll train with them. We will work very closely with their maintenance technicians," said Kohler, who has visited India three times in the past year. He said he may go back to New Delhi in March and was planning to send his deputy, Richard Millies, in late January or early February to coincide with an arms bazaar.
New Delhi's ultimate choice of its next fighter aircraft "will be a fairly significant political statement," he said.
India is widely said to be interested also in a range of U.S. arms, including P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, PAC-3 anti-missile systems and electronic warfare systems.
Analysts fear U.S. sales could fuel an arms race between India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars since the 1947 partition of British India.
If their rivalry flared anew, the United States could be on the hook to deliver sophisticated weaponry to a region on the brink of war, said Matt Schroeder of the Federation of American Scientists' arms sales monitoring project.
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