DISARMAMENT: Massive US-UAE Arms Deal in Offing

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 19 1999 (IPS) - The United States is on the verge of finalising an 8 billion dollar arms salethe biggest single deal in nearly two decadesto one of the world’s major oil producing nations: the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to a an authoritative trade source.

“We expect an announcement by the end of this year,” Tom Cardamone, editor of the Washington-based ‘Arms Trade News’, told IPS.

The proposed sale includes about 80 F-16 combat aircraft – one of the frontline fighter planes currently in service with the US Air Force – along with a staggering array of sophisticated missiles and radar and electronic systems, Cardamone said.

The planes, costing 25 million dollars, totalled a package worth about 2 billion dollars, w3ith the rest of the arms deal amounting to an additional 6 billion dollars.

Unlike the massive 20 billion dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf War – described as the largest in US history – the UAE arms deal is steeped in controversy because the Gulf emirate was insisting on access to computer source codes that run all of the F-16’s electronics systems.

The Clinton Administration has backed the proposed deal, not only because the UAE is a strong political and military ally of the United States, but also because the sale would help boost the sagging post-Cold War US defence industry, said Cardomone.

The sale is expected to generate thousands of new jobs at the Lockheed Martin F-16 assembly plant in Fort Worth, Texas, he noted.

Cardamone said the Clinton Administration is capitulating to UAE demands for source codes at a time when the US Congress is clamouring about the national security implications of stolen nuclear secrets.

“Yet, no one seems concerned that some of our most advanced conventional weapons technology is up for sale,” he said.

Cardamone said that these source codes, so far, had been given only to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies such as Britain and Germany. If the UAE deal went through, it would be the first Third World nation to gain access to these sensitive codes.

“If we give this to the UAE, we are sure to get similar demands from Turkey and Israel,” Cardomone said.

Both US allies possessed F-16 fighter planes in their arsenal – as did other Third World nations such as Egypt, South Korea, Taiwan, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, Venezuela, Bahrain and Indonesia.

Currently, the F-16 was the most popular US fighter plane among developing nations. The other advanced US combat aircraft – the McDonnell Douglas F-A-18 Hornet – was deployed in only two Third World nations – Kuwait and Malaysia.

According to the Aerospace Industries Association, the F-16 – which reportedly had never lost a dogfight – remained one of the most effective weapons of modern warfare.

In a letter to the New York Times recently, Wade Boese of the Arms Control Association in Washington said the US government was making a mistake in pushing for the sale of the F-16s to UAE “which are more advanced than our own F-16 fighters.”

Included in the deal, he said, would be one of the most advanced US air combat missiles, the AMRAAM.

“The sale of high-tech, lethal weapons to countries in the volatile and overmilitarised Middle East and reversal of a policy restricting sales of high-tech weaponry to Latin America, both of which benefit American weapon manufacturers, raises serious questions about what really is driving US arms sales,” he added.

The Council for a Livable World Education Fund, publisher of ‘Arms Trade News’, argued that source codes were the foundation of US military technology superiority.

“Can we be sure the UAE will not sell the codes to French defence corporations, who could then use them to improve their own military aircraft, which compete against US planes in the export market?”, it asked.

“Can we guarantee that Iraq, or any other enemy, will not steal the source codes from UAE?

“Once again, no one in Congress wants to stand in the way of an arms contract, much less one worth 8.0 billion dollars.”

The UAE meanwhile threatened that, if it did not get the F-16 fighters – and the computer codes – it would buy its fighter needs from France.

In November last year, the UAE announced plans to buy 30 Mirage 2000 fighter planes from France, along with advanced air-to-air missiles, in a deal worth more than 5.5 billion dollars.

The UAE, a Gulf sheikdom with a population of about 2.4 million people, is one of the world’s largest arms buyers. According to the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the UAE purchased about 3.3 billion dollars worth of arms during 1992- 1996, mostly from the US, France and Britain.