Posted on 05/14/2002 5:11:13 PM PDT by swarthyguy
Washington, May 14: India is dangling the carrot of $4.3 billion in weapon purchases before America’s arms industry and its promoters in the Pentagon and elsewhere in the Bush administration.
At the first-ever meeting between defence-related industries in the two countries here yesterday, Om Prakash, joint secretary in the ministry of defence, told US arms manufacturers anxious to tap into Indian order books that India was one of the biggest purchasers of defence equipment in the world.
With an annual defence budget of over $13 billion, about a third of that amount would be spent on acquiring new technology and equipment for India’s armed forces.
Prakash was supplemented in his exhaustive presentation on the scope of Indo-US defence cooperation by Prodipto Ghosh, additional secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office. Ghosh outlined opportunities for the US in India.
The coming together of defence industrialists in the two countries took place ahead of a meeting of the Indo-US Defence Policy Group, to be held here next week.
The group, headed by defence secretary Yogendra Narain and Douglas Feith, the US under-secretary for defence, was revived after a four-year gap following the visit of Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary for defence, to India in November last year.
Its meeting here comes after a visit to New Delhi by Lincoln Bloomfield, the assistant secretary of state for political and military affairs, to launch an Indo-US politico-military dialogue, which is to serve as a forum to work out the modalities of US defence supplies to India.
The commercial aspect of Indo-US defence cooperation has acquired a new life with the signing of a $146-million deal last month by New Delhi to purchase eight weapon-locating radars and accessories from the US.
India is now looking to the US for the purchase of Patriot missiles, submersible dive units and military transport helicopters. Air Force Lieutenant General Tome Walters, who is in charge of US arms sales abroad at the Defence Security Cooperation Agency here, has just returned from a trip to India to discuss further sales.
A major problem facing the Pentagon in these efforts to promote arms sales to India is opposition from the US Congress and requirements on Capitol Hill, which require clearances.
The Pentagon is, therefore, reviewing export licence procedures so that supplies to India could be allowed at a faster pace. It is also engaged in an effort to convince the Congress that military sales to India would be part of an overall US defensive military strategy for Asia.
Notwithstanding the interest on Capitol Hill in promoting US arms sales, there are worries among Congressmen and Senators about arming India as long as the potential for conflict with Pakistan continues.
These worries are fuelled by Pakistan’s supporters and lobbyists and act as a damper to the Pentagon’s efforts. All US foreign military sales have to be notified to the Congress.
US assistant secretary of state Christina Rocca’s current peace efforts in the subcontinent are motivated, in part, by the need to successfully negotiate clearances for US arms sales to India.
Underlining the priority which the Bush administration has attached to such sales, yesterday’s meeting of industrialists was attended by Feith, Bloomfield, representatives of the US army and navy, officials in charge of non-proliferation control, department of commerce and congressional aides.
It was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, the US-India Business Council and the National Defence Industrial Association here.
And a lot of congressmen remember the close cooperation between Pakistan and the US against the Soviets and are reluctant to be too generous to india.
Anyway, a quick incursion to clean out the border area near the Kashmir border seems necessary; the indians need to preserve some credibility as they can literally hear the PakISI laughing across the border.
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