Author: Chidanand Rajghatta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: June 18, 2003
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=29729
The Bush Administration on Wednesday
shot down reports that it intended to resume supply of F-16 fighter jets
to Pakistan, and that it would make an announcement to that effect during
military ruler Pervez Musharraf's visit to Washington next week.
Pentagon, State Department and
Indian Embassy officials variously described the reports as "incorrect"
and "totally false."
The bogey was resurrected by a
little-known newsletter called Defence and Foreign Affairs Daily. Citing
"highly placed Washington sources," it reported on June 13 that the US
Government is preparing to announce sale of new Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters
to the Pakistan Air Force.
The announcement would be made
during Musharraf's visit and the "proposed sale would symbolise the commitment
of the US Bush Administration to Pakistan, which is now being seen as increasingly
central in the US' emerging strategy to contain Iran and to isolate North
Korea," Gregory Copley, the author of the newsletter, said.
Copley went on to claim that US
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld broke the news of the intended sale during
his meeting at the Willard Hotel with Indian Deputy Prime Minister L K
Advani. Rumsfeld wanted to tell Advani personally of the proposed sale
in order to avoid the news reaching the Indian Government through less
formal channels, he said.
Both US administration sources
and Indian officials sounded mystified by the report and dismissed it.
"The (Defence) Secretary did not
say that," Pentagon spokesperson Diane Perry said, while declining to elaborate
what was discussed between the two.
"We're kinda scratching our heads
about it. It's a strange story. I have nothing to confirm it," a state
department said. A senior Indian diplomat privy to the Rumsfeld-Advani
meeting described the story as "totally false."
Stories about resumption of the
F-16 sale to Pakistan have reappeared periodically in the years and months
since Washington cut off the supply in mid-stream in 1990 despite contractual
obligations, following Islamabad's violation of the requirements under
Pressler Amendment. The law, which has subsequently been overturned, enjoined
that Pakistan should not cross the nuclear threshold of making weapons
grade material.
Washington later returned to Pakistan
the money it had paid after a lengthy and messy wrangle, but the incident
soured ties between the two countries throughout the 1990s. Following his
takeover in a coup, Musharraf himself has raised the issue each time ahead
of his visit to US, ostensibly in an effort to get some kind of big ticket
military items if not the F-16s.
But the Bush administration has
so far rebuffed him. Except for resuming supply of spares and supplies
for existing US armaments, it has not cleared any major items in keeping
with its word to India.
New Delhi has conveyed to US that
it will view adversely any offensive military supplies to Pakistan -- especially
the F-16s -- given Islamabad's past history of wanton aggression and deploying
such arms against India. The administration has also been told that big
ticket arms to Pakistan would affect the growing US defence and military
relationship with India.
One administration source proffered
a very simple explanation to reject the story: The F-16s would cost a packet,
and Pakistan, at US mercy even for its economic survival, was in no shape
to pay for it.
"Of course there are military aid
programs, but some one has to pay for it and I don't think the US Congress
or the administration is in such a generous mood, especially since Pakistan
faces no threat," the source, a wellplaced official, said.
In previous conversations, officials
have said Washington might consider Pakistan's requests for spares for
its grounded F-16s -- less than two squadrons of it are now considered
airworthy -- but new planes are "out of question."
