Posted on 09/29/2003 7:25:21 AM PDT by lelio
The Pentagon has dropped its opposition to controversial legislation that would direct the US to shun overseas suppliers in purchasing parts for essential weapons systems.
The bill, which had faced a threatened veto from the White House, was watered down in negotiations between Duncan Hunter, the House armed services committee chairman, and Paul Wolfowitz (pictured), deputy defence secretary. In a "discussion draft" dated September 10 obtained by the Financial Times, the Pentagon is given wider authority to disregard the provision, permitting the defence secretary to grant waivers "in the interest of national defence".
But the new language would still force the Pentagon to issue the waivers on a product by product basis, which could cause significant delays.
"We would be sending a very strong signal to our trading partners that we were trying to eliminate international suppliers from our defence programmes," said Jon Etherton of the Aerospace Industries Association, which represents defence suppliers. He said that, in practice, such waivers were rarely issued.
The "Buy America" measure, which was inserted into the annual defence authorisation bill by Mr Hunter, has been watched intensely by arms manufacturers in both the US and abroad who fear that huge extra costs may be imposed.
The failure to strip the entire measure from the bill has angered John Warner, chairman of the Senate armed services panel, who this week wrote to cabinet officials warning it would harm US allies that had assisted in Iraq and Afghanistan, a clear reference to the UK. He said he feared "trade retaliation" if the measure were passed by Congress, which could "jeopardise our $50bn annual trade surplus in aerospace products".
Andy Card, White House chief of staff, headed a meeting on Friday of top administration officials to consider the issue.
If a company cannot reliably sell products also to the civilian market to supplement its government contracts, it wont have the technology or base to be able to build military parts. The first time that a company dependent on government contracts loses a bid, it will go into bankrupcy. Also, as more and more companies rely on asia for its IT and engineering capabilities, it wont have the talent to win contracts.
Good post btw...
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