US readies arms sales to Saudi, Gulf neighbours
Reuters - 17 November, 2007
www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?id=358631&news_type=Top&lang=en

The Bush administration is preparing to tell Congress next month it plans to
sell Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours billions of dollars in advanced
arms as a counterweight to Iran, Syria and militant groups. "We expect to
make the formal notification of the initial sales soon," before Congress
recesses next month, a State Department official said.

Saudi Arabia is expected to be the biggest buyer. The deals could be worth a
combined total of $ 20bn over the years, Pentagon officials have told
Congress, which has 30 days to vote to block a proposed sale from the formal
notification date, but rarely does so. The pre-notification clock that
started on Tuesday lasts 20 days, meaning the formal process could start as
soon as December 4 or so - leaving Congress little time to debate the issues
before it recesses for the year.

At issue is a Boeing Co kit that turns unguided bombs into precision
munitions - a sale frowned on by Israel's backers in the US Congress. State
Department officials have been consulting lawmakers in a drive to head off a
potential drawn-out clash over these so-called Joint Direct Attack
Munitions, or JDAMs.

The coming sales may include Patriot anti-missile battery upgrades for
several countries, plus a new class of shore-patrolling warships for Saudi
Arabia's eastern fleet, according to retired Air Force Lt Gen Jeffrey
Kohler, who held talks on the matter before stepping down in August as the
Pentagon's top arms-sale official. The warship piece "of the so-called
package could run as high as $ 11bn to $ 13bn and take well over a decade
before delivery of the last ship" of up to 12 vessels, he said.

US suppliers likely to benefit from the new round of Gulf arms deals include
Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp, General Dynamics Corp, Boeing
and Raytheon Co.

In separate but related deals, the Bush administration pledged earlier this
year to boost US military aid to Israel by 25 per cent, to $ 30bn, over 10
years, much of which is spent on US-built arms. Over the same period, Egypt,
the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, will get $ 13bn
in US military aid.