F-16s sold to Pakistan will be without technology to to penetrate the airspace of another country which was highly defended
Published: Monday, 31 July, 2006, 12:59 PM Doha Time |
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration’s plan to sell 36 F-16 jets and other equipment to Pakistan has emerged unscathed from a congressional review period.
The $5.1bn package, officially notified to Congress on June 28, is considered the largest US arms sale to Pakistan.
The lawmakers had 30 days to reject the offer. The deadline expired on Friday.
Without a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate to kill the sale, it is automatically approved under the laws governing international arms sales.
“We’ve worked closely with Congress and we think we’ve smoothed out a few of the difficulties that we’ve faced there on procedures that we use,” said US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher.
“We’re moving ahead with the sale which we think is very important to our ties and to Pakistan’s needs.”
The deal can now only be blocked if it is a two-thirds vote against it in the House and Senate. Otherwise, it will stand automatically approved under US laws governing international sales.
The challenge by two Democratic House members who introduced legislation to scuttle the deal did not gather much support.
The 36 aircraft worth $5bn are manufactured by the Lockheed Martin Corp, but the transaction will also benefit a number of other companies, including Raytheon, Boeing and Northrop Grumman.
During last week’s hearing on F-16s to Pakistan, State Department Assistant Secretary John F Hillen said the aircraft being given to Pakistan will not have the capability to be used in offensive ways to penetrate the airspace of another country which was highly defended, nor will the aircraft be “nuclear capable.”
The official’s answer, which went largely unnoticed by the media, was made to a question from California congressman Dana Rohrabacher. It showed that the F-16s being sold to Pakistan would be stripped of key technologies.
Rohrabacher asked what would happen to the US-supplied high-tech equipment if Pakistan falls like the Shah of Iran.
In response, Hillen noted that despite the public notification, US F-16 Block C/D approved for the Pakistan Air Force would be stripped of several key technologies that would otherwise be part of the package to prevent the aircraft from being used for “offensive purposes.”
He essentially said that the F-16s sold to Pakistan would basically be unable to launch attacks into well-defended foreign airspaces.
Hillen said: “I would note, Mr Rohrabacher, that in our structure of the sale, I referred to before a set of documents never before shared in an arms notification process, between the executive branch and Congress that I made the decision to share.
“And it enumerated the technologies were not that would usually go with an F-16, that are not part of this deal. And they include ones that would allow the F-16 to be used in offensive ways to penetrate airspace of another country that was highly defended. So, I think that’s worth noting.” – Internews
<< Home