U.S. accelerates Gulf arms sales
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration will announce next week a series of arms deals worth tens of billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia and the five oil-rich Gulf states as well as new 10-year military aid packages to Israel and Egypt in a move to shore up allies in the Middle East and counter Iran’s rising influence, U.S. officials said Friday.
The arms deals, which include the sales of a variety of sophisticated weaponry, would be the largest negotiated by this administration. The military assistance agreements would provide $30 billion in new U.S. aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt over 10 years, the officials said. Both figures represent significant increases in military support.
U.S. officials said the arms sales to Saudi Arabia are expected to include air-to-air missiles as well as Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which turn standard bombs into “smart” precision-guided bombs. Most but not all of the arms sales to the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman – will be defensive, the officials said.
U.S. officials said the common goal of the military aid packages and arms sales is to strengthen pro-Western countries against Iran at a time when the hard-line regime seeks to extend its influence in the region.
“This is a big development because it’s part of a larger regional strategy and the maintenance of a strong U.S. presence in the region. We’re paying attention to the needs of our allies and what everyone in the region believes is a flexing of muscles by a more aggressive Iran. One way to deal with that is to make our allies and friends strong,” said a senior administration official involved in the negotiations.
The arms deals, which have quietly been under discussion for months, will be announced Monday in advance of trips next week to the Middle East by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and are expected to be on their agenda in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The administration has a notional list of arms to sell to the oil-rich Gulf states, but there are no final agreements on quantities and specific models, U.S. officials said. “We’re now in a phase of going back to them to get agreements,” the administration official said.
State Department and Pentagon officials started briefing key members of Congress about their intentions over the past week, U.S. officials said. The initial reception has been positive, said officials involved in those briefings. They acknowledged, however, that some parts of the deal are supported more than others. Arms sales to Gulf countries have often been controversial.
The administration hopes to finalize discussions with the Gulf states over the next two months and provide a full rundown this fall for congressional approval.
“We want to convince Congress to continue our tradition of military sales to all six” states, the senior administration official said. “We’ve been helping Gulf Arabs for years, and that needs to continue.”
Sunni regimes in the Gulf have felt particularly vulnerable since the election of a pro-Iranian Shiite government in neighboring Iraq last year. “There’s a sense here and in the region of the need to build up defenses against Iranian encroachment,” said a U.S. official familiar with the deals.
The aid packages to Israel and Egypt are further along. A U.S.-Israel agreement, to replace a 10-year arrangement that expires this year, has been under discussion since February, U.S. officials say. The new U.S. package will include strictly military aid; economic assistance has been discontinued now that Israel is considered a developed economy, U.S. officials say.
President Bush said last month, after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, that he was strongly committed to negotiating a new 10-year agreement that would increase U.S. assistance “to meet the new threats and challenges (Israel) faces.”
Washington has long promised to help Israel sustain a so-called “qualitative military edge” over other major powers in the region.