Saudis may make weapons with US

Abu Dhabi: The United States is planning to jointly produce tank components, light armoured vehicles and other products in Saudi Arabia, according to a senior US military official.

"Our biggest co-production project in the Middle East is in Egypt, where we jointly produced 1025 M1A1 tanks. In Saudi Arabia we are still in the planning phase, though the project initially will not be as big as what we have in Egypt, but there is good potential for growth there," Brigadier General Clinton Anderson, head of the US Army's Security Assistance Command, told Gulf News yesterday.

Even though no co-production projects have been planned with the UAE, relations and cooperation between the two countries are excellent, the general said.

United States has 32 co-production programmes with other countries and their total value exceeds $32 billion (Dh117.7 billion).

With growing security concerns, Anderson said, demand for air-defence systems and infrastructure protection have surged in the region.

"The clients in the Middle East have become more sophisticated and very specific in their needs, with infrastructure, such as oil production facilities and power production plants, in dire need of protection," said Clifford Beal, director of the US Strix Consultancy.

The US army encourages government-to-government arms sales through the Foreign Military Sales scheme, under which 3.8 per cent of the cost is added to the contracts for maintenance, rather than a manufacturer's direct deal with foreign governments.

"Recipients end up saving money as the 3.8 per cent proves to be much cheaper than the cost of establishing the services on their own," Lieutenant General Jeffery Kohler, director of the Defence Security Cooperation Agency, said in a presentation at the Idex 2007 exhibition yesterday.

I don't know if it's for new tanks or for spares/upgrade production.Anyway license production is not as dangerous as a lot of folks think.The Parent company will hold all the classified aces with it,while allowing the customer to generate employment & also (gradually) raise his industrial technology standards.I don't really think that there will be substantial transfer of technology here.

Besides every tank producer barring the Israelis will jump in the moment Uncle Sam moves in,so might as well make a few bucks!!!!

This is great. Not only do we depend on middle East oil, we are now building military hardware there as well. If the SHTF our good muslim buddies in the Mid East are probably going to cut off our access to any strategic asset we have in that region.

This really makes me feel more secure. Co-operation with those governments is a one sided deal. Good for them. bad for us. We can make the military hardware in USA. Employ Americans. Sell the hardware to them. Make profit.
But don't give them control of the factory!

Military uniforms made in China. Tanks made in Egypt.
Boots made in Hong Kong. Selling out our national defense resources is supreme idiocy.

This is BS.
The Saudis are only our friends as long as it suits them.
Our weapon systems should be 100% Made in the USA by American citizen laborers.

Raptors arrive at Kadena

An F-22 Raptor lands at Kadena Air Base, Japan, Feb. 18, marking the aircraft's first overseas deployment. The jet is one of 12 along with more than 250 Airmen deployed from Langley Air Force Base, Va., to Kadena as part of an air expeditionary force rotation. (U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Ryan Ivacic)

YES!!....This relationship works ! : )

This one does'nt

Et Tu, Saudi? INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 2/8/2007 Black Hawks Down: The downing by Jihadists of six U.S. choppers in three weeks, almost all in Sunni-controlled territories of Iraq, isn't dumb luck. They're clearly using more high-tech weapons. Who's arming them? Rumors finger Iran, but it doesn't appear that Iran-backed Shiite militias are behind the attacks. Most of the surface-to-air missiles have been fired within the Sunni triangle and outside areas controlled by Shiite militias. An Islamic group tied to al-Qaida took credit for shooting down the Marine transport helicopter that killed seven Wednesday. It crashed in Anbar province, a Sunni and al-Qaida stronghold bordering Saudi Arabia. We learned from the Baker report and wire reports that Saudis, not Iranians, are supplying insurgents with the money for shoulder-fired missiles and other sophisticated weaponry — a revelation that has been drowned out by all the hype and saber-rattling over Iran. Are our Saudi "allies" secretly backing a jihad against U.S. forces next door, while telling us they're cooperating with our Iraq efforts? "Funding for the Sunni insurgency comes from private individuals within Saudi Arabia," the Iraq Study Group flatly stated in a throwaway line buried on Page 29 of its 160-page report.

Parrot:

Saudi's suck!.....drive the parasites off

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