Arms sale to Middle East countries by Bush administration

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The “headline-grabber” read: “U.S. Plans New Arms Sales to Gulf Allies.” The subsequent subheading added one detail: “$20 Billion Deal Includes Weapons for Saudi Arabia.”

 Saudi Arabia?  

- The country that opposed the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and whose king, in March 2007, called the invasion an “illegal occupation”? 

- The country that told the U.S. to remove its troops and find some other country for U.S. Central Command’s (USCENTCOM) forward command post?   

- The country whose border is so poorly monitored that 75 percent of all foreign fighters cross into Iraq from Saudi territory, far more than from Syria? 

- The country whose autocratic government makes little effort to prevent its youth from going to Iraq – Saudi nationals constitute an estimated 40 percent of all foreign insurgents – where they become bomb makers, snipers, suicide bombers, or otherwise fight U.S. forces?  

- The “allied” country Congress specifically excluded, in Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006, from any and all U.S. military assistance normally provided in the State Department’s Foreign Operations appropriation unless the president waived the ban by certifying that the Saudi’s were cooperating in the war on terror – which Bush did each year? 

- The country that provided financial support for the Hamas-dominated Palestinian government elected in January 2006 (support subsequently removed after the split between Hama in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank)? 

- The country that pays Palestinian families when a family member is killed by Israel military action?  

- A country that refuses to recognize Israel diplomatically?

Many in Congress vociferously objected to the presidential waivers in 2005 and 2006, a noticeable change from  the 1990s, especially in the first years after the 1991 Gulf War when the Pentagon willing sold almost anything to the Saudis – with the stipulation, demanded by Tel Aviv, that Arab countries would not get equipment that technologically equaled the equipment provided Israel. Even so, based on these orders, the U.S. actually delivered $22.9 billion in weaponry to the Saudis in the period 1997-2004.

This bit of history goes a long way to explain one puzzling aspect of the headlines announcing the sale: highlighting the $20 billion for Saudi Arabia rather than the real total which, for nine countries in the region, comes to at least $63 billion over ten years.

So how will the other $43 billion windfall for U.S. defense industry break out? Nearly half of the $63 billion – $30 billion – goes to Israel, again largely because of history.

As a “reward” for Israel and Egypt signing the 1979 peace treaty (the Camp David Accord), President Carter asked Congress for a special $4.8 billion aid package to be split between the two countries, with Israel getting $3 billion and Egypt $1.8 billion. These figures became an annual “entitlement” that lasted into the mid-1990s.

At this point, the Israelis proposed a revised agreement. Israel requested that its money, which had been a combination of economic and military aid, be converted to all military assistance. Israel offered to cap its aid at $2.4 billion annually if at least half could be spent wherever Israel chose (normally, such aid must be spent in the U.S.).

Many in Congress were not pleased with the “no strings” aspect of the Israeli proposal, but they could not resist “recouping” $600 million at a time when the Clinton administration was looking for funds to help Jordan, which signed its own peace accord with Israel in 1994. To keep the 3-to-2 informal ratio created by the 1979 Camp-David peace accord, the Israeli reduction required a $400 million reduction in Egypt’s funding. At $1 billion, the Israeli offer was even more attractive. Moreover, in 1997, Congress capped aid to the Middle East at $5.4 billion. But with the suddenly materializing billion dollars, other regional friends could be accommodated without exceeding the new cap – e.g., $85 million to the Palestinians, $193 million to Jordan, and $12.5 million to Lebanon.

Over the last ten years the Israeli “concessions” have been reversed. Today, Israel is still the only country allowed to spend its foreign military aid – now all of it – wherever it wants. As for the reduction from $3 billion to $2.4 billion in annual direct military aid, that will return to $3 billion under a new Bush proposal. Unknown is whether Egypt’s military will also go back to receiving $1.8 billion – its “2” in the Camp David-associated 3-to-2 ratio.

Another unanswered question about the proposed arms deal is: Why now?

Had the administration moved before November 2003, the announcement would have been seen in the region as an audacious – given the “success” of U.S.-led coalitions in Afghanistan and Iraq – but credible recommitment by Washington to the then 25 year-old policy of diplomatic, economic, and military (conventional and nuclear) containment of Tehran’s ambitions in the Gulf.

But looking at the Saudi record and Riyadh’s increasing propensity to act in its interests without coordinating with Washington, there is the suggestion that the Bush administration is suddenly wary of its “other” flank in the Persian Gulf – the one occupied by the Saudi-dominated six-member Gulf Cooperation Council.

Militarily overcommitted in mid-summer 2007, the White House has only two cards to play: pump up fear of Iran acquiring enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon, or bribe the regional allies. For a few months the nuclear fear factor seemed to work, but Tehran seems to have become “reasonable” enough in its position to defuse tensions with most of the main actors in this dispute.

This left the Bush administration with bribery, spiced with a touch of traditional Sunni-Shi’a sectarianism that underpins relations between Riyadh and Tehran even when they cooperate (e.g., the just-formed Iraq security sub-committee).So this week the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense are on an old-fashion, bribe-them-first-then-twist-arms, whistle-stop campaign to make sure regional “allies” – this time including the Saudis – are in line behind U.S. policy.

But the multi-billion dollar arms deal has some inconsistencies that could cause the two secretaries problems. The most immediate one is the policy message represented by the sheer size of the arms deal. Washington has been insisting that there is no military solution to the region’s trauma. Yet it is proposing $63 billion for weapons that will, if used, only increase trauma.And that total apparently doesn’t include $40 million  in guns, bullets, rockets, missiles, small arms ammunition, night vision goggles, and spare parts for the Lebanese army this year and another $280 million for 2008. Nor does it include the $3 billion Iraq is spending on weapons and ammunition.

The sale, once Congress is formally notified, will go through unless Congress acts to block it. The Israelis say this time they have no objection – Prime Minister Olmert and the Israel Defense Forces  see Tehran as a greater threat than Riyadh. As for the Pentagon, it hopes that the increased production of some items will save it money through economy of scale. And of course U.S. companies that build weapons and munitions are pleased at the prospect of new contracts and new profits.

But what this proposal doesn’t  explain – unless it’s somewhere in the fine print that hasn’t yet come to light – is how pouring more weapons into the Middle East moves the region in general and Iraq in particular any closer to resolving the underlying political impasse.  George Bush started the Iraq war over weapons that never existed. It’s ironic that his administration seems to now think the way to end the war is to make sure there are more weapons. Go figure!

Authors Bio:

Colonel Daniel M. Smith graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1966. His initial assignment was with the 3rd Armor Division in Germany.  He then served as an intelligence advisor in Vietnam, following which he earned a graduate degree at Cornell University and taught philosophy and English at West Point.

 

Subsequent intelligence and public affairs assignments were at Fort Hood, Texas; the Army Materiel Research and Development Command, where he was speechwriter for the Commanding General; the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); and Headquarters, Department of the Army.  Six of his years with DIA were in London in the British Ministry of Defense and n as Military Attache in the U.S. Embassy. Colonel Smith retired in 1992. He joined the non-partisan Center for Defense Information in April 1993 becoming Associate Director in 1995 and Chief of Research in 1999.

 

Colonel Smith, a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, the Armed Forces Staff College, and the Army War College, joined the Friends Committee on National Legislation in September 2002 as Senior Fellow on Military Affairs.