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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Big arms deal with US
By Amira IbrahimThe United States agreed last Thursday to sell Egypt $3.2 billion worth of new US weapons, including 24 F-16 jetfighters, 200 M1A1 tanks and 32 patriot missiles.
US Defence Secretary William Cohen announced the proposed sale, which is likely to be approved by Congress, after separate talks with President Hosni Mubarak and Defence Minister Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.
It was the latest of several arms offers by Cohen, who made a nine-nation trip to the Gulf and Middle East, to America's "friends" in the region.
The 24 F-16 fighters, made by Lockheed Martin, would cost $1.2 billion and increase a force of 196 F-16s already serving with the Egyptian air force. The battery of patriot-3 missiles, which would cost $1.3 billion, consists of eight firing units, each containing four missiles, made by Raytheon. The 200 tanks, costing nearly $700 million, would be assembled in Egypt and add to 555 such tanks already in the Egyptian arsenal.
Cohen told reporters travelling with him that Egypt would have felt "insulted" if its request for the weapons had been denied and might have turned to other arms suppliers.
"If they were to make a request to the United States and we were to say, 'I'm sorry; we are not going to provide you with any modernised equipment,' I think they would take that as an insult," Cohen said. "There are many potential suppliers -- Russian, Chinese, French, British and others that seek to fulfil their requests. I think that they would look very sceptically upon our friendship and very strong partnership if we were to say 'I'm sorry; we have made a decision that is superior to your decision. You don't need this and you shouldn't have it.'"
Cohen said the United States believed that a strong military relationship supports a strong political and diplomatic relationship building peace and stability in the region.
"Egypt, of course, has been a role model for some 20 years now, since the Camp David accords, and you can look to the Egyptian-Israeli relationship as a model for others to follow," he said. "We believe this relationship is very important and that is the reason we continue to support and [have] friendship with Egypt."
William Cohen with President Mubarak
US defence officials said the equipment was unlikely to be delivered for some years because the patriots were still being developed and the F-16 planes had yet to be built. "It will take several years," Cohen said.
Egypt would receive the "block 40" model of the F-16, the most advanced version of the world's most popular attack jet.
Cohen said Egypt would pay for the arms from the $1.2 billion a year it gets in US military assistance. The Pentagon has approved the sales in principle, but no deal has been signed.
Cohen, who flew later to Israel on the final stop of a busy trip, earlier offered advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles (AMRAAM) to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The United Arab Emirates is currently planning to buy 80 of the earlier "block 60" F-16s for $6 billion and a package of AMRAAM and other air-to-air missiles for another $2 billion.
At a news conference in Cairo, Cohen denied that the United States was fuelling an arms race in the Middle East, but said Washington remained ready to help its allies in the region in response to legitimate requests for military modernisation. "We are, of course, eager to be of assistance," he said.
Cohen said each country had the right to determine its own defence needs. "This is coming at the request of the countries. It's not as if I am coming here and insisting they acquire."
During the visit to Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu shrugged off the sale of advanced weaponry to Egypt as "nothing particularly new," noting that his country and Egypt have been bound by a peace treaty for two decades.
But a senior Israeli military official told journalists that Israel was worried about an arms build-up in the region after the United States gave the green light to billions of dollars of weapons sales to Egypt and Gulf states.
Israel is "concerned about the level of armament in the Middle East as well as the lack of military-to-military contacts between the Israeli and Egyptian military," the official said. "The bulk of the Egyptian military is trained, deployed and indoctrinated vis-à-vis the IDF [Israeli Defence Force], whatever they say on the Hill."
The Israeli official, who requested anonymity, said the Middle East remained a "largely over-armed" region. "At the core of our concern is that the region is over-armed in the conventional sense," the official said.
But Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Arens, who held talks with Cohen on Friday, was less perturbed. "Egypt is a country with whom we are at peace," Arens said. "We understand the reasons why the Egyptians would like to modernise their defence forces and take care of their security interests."
