U.S. Pusing Through Dozens of Foreign Weapons Deals
Eric Lipton
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration is pushing through a broad array of foreign weapons deals as it seeks to re-arm Iraq and Afghanistan, contain North Korea and Iran, and solidify ties with onetime Russian allies.
From tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to missiles, remotely piloted aircraft and even warships, the Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005.
The trend, which started in 2006, is most pronounced in the Middle East, but it reaches into northern Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and even Canada, through dozens of deals that senior Bush administration officials say they are confident will both tighten military alliances and combat terrorism.
"This is not about being gunrunners," said Bruce Lemkin, the air force deputy under secretary who is helping coordinate many of the biggest sales. "This is about building a more secure world."
The surging American arms sales reflect the foreign policy tides, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the broader campaign against international terrorism, that have dominated the Bush administration. Deliveries on orders being placed now will continue for several years, perhaps turning out to be one of President George W. Bush's most lasting legacies.
The United States is far from the only country pushing sophisticated weapons systems: It is facing intense competition from Russia and elsewhere in Europe, including continuing contests for multibillion-dollar deals to sell fighter jets to India and Brazil.
In that booming market, U.S. military contractors are working closely with the Pentagon, which acts as a broker and procures arms for foreign customers through its Foreign Military Sales program.
Less-sophisticated weapons, and services to maintain these weapons systems, are often bought directly by foreign governments. That category of direct commercial sales has seen an enormous surge as well, as measured by export licenses issued this fiscal year covering an estimated $96 billion, up from $58 billion in 2005, according to the State Department, which must approve the licenses.
About 60 countries get annual military aid from the United States, $4.5 billion a year, to help them buy these American weapons. Israel and Egypt receive more than 80 percent of that aid. The United States has also recently given Iraq and Afghanistan large amounts of weapons and other equipment and has begun to train fledgling military units at no charge; this military assistance is included in the tally of rising foreign sales. But most arms exports are paid for by the purchasers without U.S. financing.
The growing tally of international weapon deals, which started its sharp increase in 2006, is now provoking questions among some advocates of arms control and some members of Congress.
"Sure, this is a quick and easy way to cement alliances," said William Hartung, an arms control specialist at the New America Foundation, a public policy institute. "But this is getting out of hand."
Congress is notified before major arms sales deals are completed between foreign governments and the Pentagon. While lawmakers have the power to formally object and block any individual sale, they rarely use it.
Representative Howard Berman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said he supported many of the individual weapons sales, like helping Iraq build the capacity to defend itself, but he worried that the sales blitz could have some negative effects. "This could turn into a spiraling arms race that in the end could decrease stability," he said.
The United States has long been the top arms supplier to the world. In the past several years, however, the list of nations that rely on the United States as a primary source of major weapons systems has greatly expanded. Among the recent additions are Argentina, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Georgia, India, Iraq, Morocco and Pakistan, according to sales data through the end of last month provided by the Department of Defense.
Cumulatively, these countries signed $870 million worth of arms deals with the United States from 2001 to 2004.
For the past four fiscal years, that total has been $13.8 billion.
In many cases, these sales represent a cultural shift, as nations like Romania, Poland and Morocco, which have long relied on Russian-made MIG-17 fighter jets, are now buying new F-16s, built by Lockheed Martin.
At Lockheed Martin, one of the largest U.S. military contractors, international sales last year brought in about $6.3 billion, or 15 percent of the company's total sales, up from $4.8 billion in 2001.
The foreign sales are credited with helping keep alive some production lines, like those of the F-16 fighter jet and Boeing's C-17 transport plane.
Fighter jets made in America will now be flying in other countries for years to come, meaning continued profits for American contractors that maintain them, and in many cases regular interaction between the U.S. military and foreign air forces, Lemkin, the air force official, said.
Sales are also being driven by the push by many foreign nations to join the once-exclusive club of countries whose arsenals include precise, laser-guided missiles, high-priced U.S. technology that the country displayed during its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the Gulf region, much of the re-armament is driven by fears of Iran. The United Arab Emirates, for example, are considering spending as much as $16 billion on U.S.-made missile defense systems, according to recent notifications sent to Congress by the Department of Defense.
The Emirates also have announced an intention to order offensive weapons, including up to 26 Black Hawk helicopters and 900 Longbow Hellfire II missiles, which can knock out enemy tanks.
Saudi Arabia, this fiscal year alone, has signed at least $6 billion worth of sales agreements to buy weapons from the U.S. government - the highest figure for that country since 1993, which was another peak year in U.S. weapons sales, after the Gulf War.
Israel, long a major buyer of U.S. military equipment, is also increasing its orders, including planned purchases of perhaps as many as four American-made coastal warships, worth $1.9 billion.
In Asia, as North Korea has conducted tests of a long-range missile, American allies have been buying more U.S. equipment. One ally, South Korea, has signed sales agreements with the Pentagon this year worth $1.1 billion.
The flood of sophisticated U.S. military equipment pouring into the Middle East has evoked concern among some members of Congress, who fear that the Bush administration may be compromising the military edge Israel has long maintained in the region. Particular concern was expressed about the proposed sale this year to Saudi Arabia of devices that can convert "dumb bombs" into precision-guided weapons.
Not surprisingly, two of the biggest new arms customers are Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the past two years, Iraq has signed more than $3 billion of sales agreements - and announced plans to buy perhaps as much as $7 billion more in U.S. equipment, financed by its rising oil revenues.
Among the products on the shopping list are 140 Abrams tanks, armed helicopters, C-130J transport planes and more than 100 million rounds of ammunition, Defense Department documents show. Iraq also is considering requesting its own fleet of F-16s, although no such deal has been approved.
Lieutenant Colonel Almarah Belk, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said making these sales served the interests of both Iraq and the United States because "it reduces the risk of corruption and assists the Iraqis in getting around bottlenecks in their acquisition processes."
Over the past three years, the U.S. government, separately, has agreed to buy more than $10 billion in military equipment and weapons on behalf of Afghanistan, according to Defense Department records, including M-16 rifles and C-27 military transport aircraft.
Even before this new round of sales got under way, the country's share of the world arms trade was rising, from 40 percent of arms deliveries in 2000 to nearly 52 percent in 2006, the latest year for which the Congressional Research Service has compiled data. The next largest seller was Russia, which in 2006 accounted for 21 percent of global deliveries.