Britse mariniers bevonden zich in Iraakse wateren

[Jaani_Dushman]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door john bell hood

de VS heeft nooit wapens aan irak geleverd

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door john bell hood

Niemand heeft de VS op de knieën gekregen in viëtnam.

*proest!!*


Ik ga eens een collectie met citaten van jou moeten aanleggen!

[Jaani_Dushman]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door john bell hood

Leuk dat een linkse met de fundamentalisten in bed gaat.

Jij hebt er blijkbaar geen problemen mee om met een (Britse) sociaal-democraat in bed te kruipen...

[tomm]

john bell hood

Neen;de VS heeft nooit wapens aan irak geleverd(niet dat dat verkeerd zou geweest zijn in die tijd maar het kon nu eenmaal niet).De USSR en Frankrijk waren de grote wapenleveranciers zoals iedereen weet.Irak heeft zijn gifgas zelf gemaakt met dual-use componenten die het bij allerlei firma's gekocht heeft.Bondgenoten zijn de VS en Irak nooit geweest.dat kon ook niet;alleen al wegens de irakese houding tgenover Israël.

How US helped Iraq build deadly arsenal



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By Tim Reid


DONALD RUMSFELD, the US Defence Secretary and one of the most strident critics of Saddam Hussein, met the Iraqi President in 1983 to ease the way for US companies to sell Baghdad biological and chemical weapons components, including anthrax and bubonic plague cultures, according to newly declassified US Government documents. Mr Rumsfeld’s 90-minute meeting with Saddam, preceded by a warm handshake which was captured on film, heralded a US policy under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr of courting the Iraqi leader as an ally throughout the 1980s.
The strategy, seen as a bulwark against the Islamic fundamentalism of Iran, was so obsessively pursued that Washington stepped up arms supplies and diplomatic activity even after the Iraqis had gassed Kurds in northern Iraq in March 1988, according to the records.
A National Security Directive of November 1983 stated that the US would do “whatever was necessary and legal” to prevent Iraq from losing its war with Iran.
Mr Rumsfeld, who was a private citizen at the time, was chosen by Mr Reagan as a special envoy to the Middle East. He met Saddam on December 20 and told him that Washington was ready for a resumption of full diplomatic relations, according to a State Department report of the meeting.
The policy was followed with such vigour over the next seven years that on July 25, 1990, only one week before Saddam invaded Kuwait, the US Ambassador to Baghdad met Saddam to assure him that President Bush “wanted better and deeper relations”.
The extraordinary lengths to which successive US Administrations went to befriend Saddam, while ignoring his use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and his own people, was highlighted in The Washington Post yesterday. It is a timely reminder of American involvement in the creation of Saddam’s arsenal as the current President Bush, who has repeatedly cited Saddam’s possession of chemical and biological weapons as a reason for disarming him, prepares for a possible US-led invasion of Iraq.
To prevent Iraqi defeat in the Iran-Iraq war, which was started by Iraq and lasted from 1980 to 1988, the Reagan Administration began supplying Saddam with battlefield intelligence on Iranian troop movements.
By the end of the decade, Washington had authorised the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications. These included poisonous chemicals and biological viruses, among them anthrax and bubonic plague.
A 1994 investigation by the Senate Banking Committee disclosed that dozens of biological agents were shipped to Iraq in the mid-1980s under licence from the US Commerce Department, including strains of anthrax. Anthrax has been identified by the Pentagon as a key component of Saddam’s biological weapons programme.
The Commerce Department also approved the export of insecticides to Iraq, despite suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare.
In November 1983, a month before Mr Rumsfeld’s first visit to Baghdad, George Shultz, the Secretary of State, was given intelligence reports showing that Iraqi troops were resorting to “almost daily use of CW (chemical weapons) against the Iranians”.
But the Reagan Administration, already committed to wooing Baghdad, turned a blind eye to the reports. In February 1982, despite objections from Congress, the State Department had already removed Iraq from its terrorism list.
Mr Rumsfeld recently said that he had, at the December 1983 meeting, “cautioned” Saddam about the use of chemical weapons. That claim does not tally with a declassified State Department note of his meeting. A Pentagon spokesman later said that Mr Rumsfeld issued the caution to Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Foreign Minister.
According to an affidavit sworn by Howard Teicher, a former National Security Council official during the Reagan Administration, the US “actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third-country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required.”
Mr Teicher said that William Casey, the former CIA Director, used a Chilean front company to supply Baghdad with cluster bombs.
The Iraqi Air Force began using chemical agents against Kurdish resistance forces in northern Iraq in late 1987, provoking outrage on Capitol Hill, particularly after the now infamous March 1988 attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja.
But, in September 1988, Richard W. Murphy, the Assistant Secretary of State, wrote in a memo addressing Saddam’s use of chemical weapons: “The US-Iraqi relationship is . . . important to our long-term political and economic objectives. We believe that economic sanctions will be useless or counterproductive to influence the Iraqis.”
The present President Bush has repeatedly cited Saddam’s use of chemical weapons “against his own people” as justifying “regime change”.
David Newton, a former US Ambassador to Baghdad, told the Post: “Fundamentally, the policy was justified. We were concerned that Iraq should not lose the war with Iran, because that would have threatened Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
“Our long-term hope was that (Saddam’s) Government would become less repressive and more responsible.”



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle807098.ece

Niet alleen leverden ze conventionele wapens maar zelfs chemische wapens, en dan dat nog als reden gebruiken om Irak aan te vallen in 2003 terwijl Irak die wapens (van Amerikaanse makelij) al lang had laten vernietigen. Het artikel geeft ook aan dat de hele VS-politiek ten dienste staat van het beschermen van Saoudi-Arabië, het meest repressieve, fundamentalistische en dictatoriale land in het Midden-Oosten, en dat allemaal in naam van "vrijheid, mensenrechten en democratie". Het Amerikaanse cynisme kent geen grenzen...

Het gebruik van gifgas aan het front tegen de iraniërs was een noodzaak gezien het numeriek overwicht van de iraniërs.Volkomen verantwoord en niet afkeuringswaardig.

De vS zijn met nog meer dan de Iraniërs, helaas heeft Saddam toen geen gifgas ingezet.

[tomm]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door john bell hood

Als gentlemen mag men zich nooit gedragen.
Er zijn iranezen in irak gearresteerd die medeplichtig zijn aan terreurdaden.
De VS gedragen zich zeker niet als bezetter in irak;vooral de sjiïten zouden meer verstand moeten heben dan te joelen tegen de amerikanen.
Vooral dat laatste zinnetje is om van te gillen.Syrië en Iran willen doelbewust destabiliseren en zullen nooit bijdragen tot stabilitiet in irak.

Er is geen enkel gevaar dat de Amerikanen zich ooit als gentlemen zullen gedragen in bezet gebied.
De Iranezen zijn niet gearresteerd in Irak maar ontvoerd door buitenlandse bezettingstroepen, NIET door de Irakese politie of leger. Volgens 90% van de Iraakse bevolking, waaronder vrijwel alle (shiitische en soennittische) Arabische Irakezen zijn de Amerikanen wel bezetters in Irak en moeten ze zo vlug mogelijk buiten en zijn aanslagen tegen hen gerechtvaardigd (volgens alle opiniepeilingen waaronder die van het Britse ministerie van defensie). De VS blijven echter in Irak "op vraag van het Irakese volk" (dixit Bush).
SyriË en Iran zijn bang dat de onstabiliteit over de grenzen zal uitbreiden, en willen stabiliteit in Irak en de Amerikanen buiten. Ze hebben goede contacten met de Irakese regering.

[john bell hood]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Akufen

Bullshit.

Ze doen het nog altijd.




http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/...773106,00.html

Ge kunt duidelijk niet aantonen dat onder saddam wapens geleverd werden wat ook nooit gebeurde.Aangezien Saddam zijn arsenaal van russische oorsprong was moest hij in ieder geval afhangen van dezelfde ussr voor reservestukken en munitie tijdens de oorlog tegen Irak.Het zou niet echt praktisch geweest zijn van leverancier te veranderen alleen wegens het opleidingsaspect.In ieder geval leveren de VS nooit wapens aan een land dat ze tegen Israël kan gebruiken.In de omstandigheden van de iran-irak oorlog was er in ieder geval niets tegen geweest zijn wapens aan irak te leveren.
De openbaring(haha) doen dat ze wapens leveren aan het huidige iraakse leger is een goede.Natuurlijk leveren de VS wapens aan het huidige iraakse leger dat ze zelf opgericht,opgeleid en uitgerust hebben.

[john bell hood]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Jaani_Dushman

Jij hebt er blijkbaar geen problemen mee om met een (Britse) sociaal-democraat in bed te kruipen...

Nee,dat is niet erg.

[john bell hood]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door tomm

john bell hood



How US helped Iraq build deadly arsenal



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By Tim Reid


DONALD RUMSFELD, the US Defence Secretary and one of the most strident critics of Saddam Hussein, met the Iraqi President in 1983 to ease the way for US companies to sell Baghdad biological and chemical weapons components, including anthrax and bubonic plague cultures, according to newly declassified US Government documents. Mr Rumsfeld’s 90-minute meeting with Saddam, preceded by a warm handshake which was captured on film, heralded a US policy under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr of courting the Iraqi leader as an ally throughout the 1980s.
The strategy, seen as a bulwark against the Islamic fundamentalism of Iran, was so obsessively pursued that Washington stepped up arms supplies and diplomatic activity even after the Iraqis had gassed Kurds in northern Iraq in March 1988, according to the records.
A National Security Directive of November 1983 stated that the US would do “whatever was necessary and legal” to prevent Iraq from losing its war with Iran.
Mr Rumsfeld, who was a private citizen at the time, was chosen by Mr Reagan as a special envoy to the Middle East. He met Saddam on December 20 and told him that Washington was ready for a resumption of full diplomatic relations, according to a State Department report of the meeting.
The policy was followed with such vigour over the next seven years that on July 25, 1990, only one week before Saddam invaded Kuwait, the US Ambassador to Baghdad met Saddam to assure him that President Bush “wanted better and deeper relations”.
The extraordinary lengths to which successive US Administrations went to befriend Saddam, while ignoring his use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and his own people, was highlighted in The Washington Post yesterday. It is a timely reminder of American involvement in the creation of Saddam’s arsenal as the current President Bush, who has repeatedly cited Saddam’s possession of chemical and biological weapons as a reason for disarming him, prepares for a possible US-led invasion of Iraq.
To prevent Iraqi defeat in the Iran-Iraq war, which was started by Iraq and lasted from 1980 to 1988, the Reagan Administration began supplying Saddam with battlefield intelligence on Iranian troop movements.
By the end of the decade, Washington had authorised the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications. These included poisonous chemicals and biological viruses, among them anthrax and bubonic plague.
A 1994 investigation by the Senate Banking Committee disclosed that dozens of biological agents were shipped to Iraq in the mid-1980s under licence from the US Commerce Department, including strains of anthrax. Anthrax has been identified by the Pentagon as a key component of Saddam’s biological weapons programme.
The Commerce Department also approved the export of insecticides to Iraq, despite suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare.
In November 1983, a month before Mr Rumsfeld’s first visit to Baghdad, George Shultz, the Secretary of State, was given intelligence reports showing that Iraqi troops were resorting to “almost daily use of CW (chemical weapons) against the Iranians”.
But the Reagan Administration, already committed to wooing Baghdad, turned a blind eye to the reports. In February 1982, despite objections from Congress, the State Department had already removed Iraq from its terrorism list.
Mr Rumsfeld recently said that he had, at the December 1983 meeting, “cautioned” Saddam about the use of chemical weapons. That claim does not tally with a declassified State Department note of his meeting. A Pentagon spokesman later said that Mr Rumsfeld issued the caution to Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Foreign Minister.
According to an affidavit sworn by Howard Teicher, a former National Security Council official during the Reagan Administration, the US “actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third-country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required.”
Mr Teicher said that William Casey, the former CIA Director, used a Chilean front company to supply Baghdad with cluster bombs.
The Iraqi Air Force began using chemical agents against Kurdish resistance forces in northern Iraq in late 1987, provoking outrage on Capitol Hill, particularly after the now infamous March 1988 attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja.
But, in September 1988, Richard W. Murphy, the Assistant Secretary of State, wrote in a memo addressing Saddam’s use of chemical weapons: “The US-Iraqi relationship is . . . important to our long-term political and economic objectives. We believe that economic sanctions will be useless or counterproductive to influence the Iraqis.”
The present President Bush has repeatedly cited Saddam’s use of chemical weapons “against his own people” as justifying “regime change”.
David Newton, a former US Ambassador to Baghdad, told the Post: “Fundamentally, the policy was justified. We were concerned that Iraq should not lose the war with Iran, because that would have threatened Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
“Our long-term hope was that (Saddam’s) Government would become less repressive and more responsible.”



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle807098.ece

Niet alleen leverden ze conventionele wapens maar zelfs chemische wapens, en dan dat nog als reden gebruiken om Irak aan te vallen in 2003 terwijl Irak die wapens (van Amerikaanse makelij) al lang had laten vernietigen. Het artikel geeft ook aan dat de hele VS-politiek ten dienste staat van het beschermen van Saoudi-Arabië, het meest repressieve, fundamentalistische en dictatoriale land in het Midden-Oosten, en dat allemaal in naam van "vrijheid, mensenrechten en democratie". Het Amerikaanse cynisme kent geen grenzen...






De vS zijn met nog meer dan de Iraniërs, helaas heeft Saddam toen geen gifgas ingezet.

Ge bewijst nog altijd niet dat wapens geleverd werden wat ook niet gebeurde omdat het biet kon.In het arsenaal van saddam zaten geen amerikaanse wapens.
Dat er toegelaten werd dual use technologie aan irak te verkopen is geen geheim.Irak heeft de componenten voor zijn gifgas bij firma's van verschillende nationaliteiten gekocht.
In de VS is er lang discussie geweest over welke houding aannemen in het conflict tussen iran en irak.Toen irak aan de verliezende hand was,werd besloten irak te helpen om niet te verliezen.De USSR twijfelde ook over welke houding kiezen en bleef uiteindelijk massaal wapens leveren aan Saddam.
Had Saddam na de oorlog tegen iran een meer constructieve houding aangenomen,hadden er best zaken met kunnen gedaan worden maar hij maakte de verkeerde keuze.
Buitenlandse politiek moet altijd cynisch zijn.Het gaat in de eerste plaats om naakt eigenbelang.
Toch leuk dat bepaalde mensen erin slagen nooit te spreken over de ECHTE wapenleveranciers van Saddam zijnde Frankrijk en de USSR.

[john bell hood]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door tomm

Er is geen enkel gevaar dat de Amerikanen zich ooit als gentlemen zullen gedragen in bezet gebied.
De Iranezen zijn niet gearresteerd in Irak maar ontvoerd door buitenlandse bezettingstroepen, NIET door de Irakese politie of leger. Volgens 90% van de Iraakse bevolking, waaronder vrijwel alle (shiitische en soennittische) Arabische Irakezen zijn de Amerikanen wel bezetters in Irak en moeten ze zo vlug mogelijk buiten en zijn aanslagen tegen hen gerechtvaardigd (volgens alle opiniepeilingen waaronder die van het Britse ministerie van defensie). De VS blijven echter in Irak "op vraag van het Irakese volk" (dixit Bush).
Syrie en Iran zijn bang dat de onstabiliteit over de grenzen zal uitbreiden, en willen stabiliteit in Irak en de Amerikanen buiten. Ze hebben goede contacten met de Irakese regering.

Syrië laat toe dat terroristen infiltreren in Irak en was bepaald niet bevriend met irak onder saddam;Iran levert wapens aan radikale sjiïeten.Uw uitlating over iran is zeer grappig.Daarom dat ze de instabiliteit verhogen door de radikale sjiïten te bewapenen.
De buitenlandse troepen zijn in irak met goedkeuring van de UNO-veiligheidsraad en de gekozen irakse regering en zijn dus geen bezetters.Zonder buitenlandse troepen vervalt irak in de chaos.
Uit uw zogenaamde uiteenzetting blijkt alleen maar extreme vooringenomenheid tegen de VS en voor IRAN en Syrië,twee staten met een kwalijke reputatie.

[ministe van agitatie]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door john bell hood

Zonder buitenlandse troepen vervalt irak in de chaos.

En hoe omschrijft u de huidige situatie?

Uit uw ... uiteenzetting blijkt alleen maar extreme vooringenomenheid tegen de VS en voor IRAN en Syrië,twee staten met een kwalijke reputatie.

Correctie: DRIE staten met een kwalijke reputatie.

[john bell hood]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door ministe van agitatie

En hoe omschrijft u de huidige situatie?



Correctie: DRIE staten met een kwalijke reputatie.

Het is aan het beteren.Het kan nog veel beter worden als sommigen beseffen dat sektarisch geweld niets oplevert en dat ook geweld tegen de coalitietroepen zinloos is want die willen daar in ieder geval niet bijven..

[Jaani_Dushman]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door john bell hood

In ieder geval leveren de VS nooit wapens aan een land dat ze tegen Israël kan gebruiken.

Saudi-Arabië?

[john bell hood]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Jaani_Dushman

Saudi-Arabië?

Saoudi-Arabië zal ze niet inzetten tegen israël.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door john bell hood

Saoudi-Arabië zal ze niet inzetten tegen israël.

Hoe kan jij dat nu zeker weten? In 1967 heeft Saudi-Arabië tegen Israel gevochten, samen met het Egypte van Nasser. En dit ondanks het feit dat ze terzelfdertijd tegen Egypte aan het vechten waren in Jemen.
Er zijn geen zekerheden in de intermantionale politiek.
"There are no permanent ennemies and no eternal allies, only permanent interests".

Wie weet wat er zal gebeuren als de huidige koning sterft? Waarschijnlijk komt er dan een opvolgingstrijd binnen de koninklijke famile, met haar 500 prinsen. De breuklijn zal zich waarschijnlijk kristaliseren tussen de pro-Amerikaanse islamo-kapitalisten enerzijds en de ant-westerse fundamentalistische wahhabieten anderzijds. Als die laatste groep het haalt, dan heeft de VS nog maar eens een nieuw monster van Frankenstein gecreëerd.

[discuz]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door john bell hood

Het is aan het beteren.Het kan nog veel beter worden als sommigen beseffen dat sektarisch geweld niets oplevert en dat ook geweld tegen de coalitietroepen zinloos is want die willen daar in ieder geval niet bijven..

Uit een rapport (van vandaag!) van het Rode Kruis, toch gekend om z'n neutraliteit:

Iraqis face 'immense' suffering

The International Committee of the Red Cross says the situation for ordinary Iraqis is getting steadily worse.

Four years after the US-led invasion, the ICRC says the conflict is inflicting immense suffering, and calls for greater protection of civilians.

The Red Cross says every aspect of life in Iraq is getting worse.

Iraq's healthcare facilities face critical shortages of staff and supplies. Many doctors, nurses and patients no longer dare to go to hospitals and clinics because they are targeted or threatened.

Much of Iraq's vital water, sewage and electricity infrastructure is in a critical condition.

Food shortages have been reported in some areas and malnutrition is said to have increased.

Volledig rapport: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...eport-icrc.pdf

[john bell hood]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door discuz

Uit een rapport (van vandaag!) van het Rode Kruis, toch gekend om z'n neutraliteit:



Volledig rapport: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...eport-icrc.pdf

Bewijst dat de terroristen zich van hun eigen volk geen zak aantrekken.

[john bell hood]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Dr. Strangelove

Hoe kan jij dat nu zeker weten? In 1967 heeft Saudi-Arabië tegen Israel gevochten, samen met het Egypte van Nasser. En dit ondanks het feit dat ze terzelfdertijd tegen Egypte aan het vechten waren in Jemen.
Er zijn geen zekerheden in de intermantionale politiek.
"There are no permanent ennemies and no eternal allies, only permanent interests".

Wie weet wat er zal gebeuren als de huidige koning sterft? Waarschijnlijk komt er dan een opvolgingstrijd binnen de koninklijke famile, met haar 500 prinsen. De breuklijn zal zich waarschijnlijk kristaliseren tussen de pro-Amerikaanse islamo-kapitalisten enerzijds en de ant-westerse fundamentalistische wahhabieten anderzijds. Als die laatste groep het haalt, dan heeft de VS nog maar eens een nieuw monster van Frankenstein gecreëerd.

Wpantuig kan altijd in de handen van iemand anders vallen maar het zal niet lang bruikbaar blijven zonder reservestukken zoals iran bewezen heeft.Bepaalde componenten zal een vreemd land niet gauw krijgen.
De kans dat Saoudi-arabië zijn gesofistikeerd wapentuig tegen Israël zou inzetten is klein;de prijs zou zwaar zijn.
Zekerheden bestaan er nooit in de wereld.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door john bell hood

Wpantuig kan altijd in de handen van iemand anders vallen maar het zal niet lang bruikbaar blijven zonder reservestukken zoals iran bewezen heeft.Bepaalde componenten zal een vreemd land niet gauw krijgen.
De kans dat Saoudi-arabië zijn gesofistikeerd wapentuig tegen Israël zou inzetten is klein;de prijs zou zwaar zijn.
Zekerheden bestaan er nooit in de wereld.

Je hebt een punt over die vervangstukken. Maar de Israeli's zelf zijn er minder gerust in. Misschien moet je dit artikel eens lezen:

Saudi Saber Rattling By Michael Knights
October 30, 2003

By deploying F-15 strike aircraft to a northwestern airbase in March 2003 and holding large combined-arms exercises near the Gulf of Aqaba in mid-October, Saudi Arabia has indicated its desire to act more freely in asserting its territorial sovereignty vis-�*-vis Israel. These actions -- which Washington and Riyadh might previously have attempted to restrain -- are visible symptoms of the scaling back of U.S.-Saudi military-to-military ties. Although Riyadh's decision to alter longstanding tacit agreements regarding the posture of Saudi forces will not significantly affect the regional military balance, such a move may make Washington more reluctant to offer future arms sales and military support to the kingdom.
Background
In 1978, Carter administration plans to sell ninety-one F-15C/D strike aircraft to Saudi Arabia sparked a bitter debate. In May of that year, the sale was approved by Congress in a narrow 54-to-44 vote, and only after Riyadh accepted restrictions that limited its ability to deploy the aircraft against Israel. Specifically, the aircraft were not to be equipped with conformal fuel tanks (CFTs), preventing them from carrying extra fuel and a full weapons load simultaneously. Riyadh also agreed to refrain from basing the aircraft at the northwestern Tabuk airbase, some 150 kilometers from Israel. In 1992, sales of seventy-two even more advanced F-15S aircraft were placed under the same restrictions; in addition, the tactical early warning suite carried by these aircraft was downgraded to reduce its potential effectiveness against Israeli missiles.
The record of implementation for these restrictions, however, is poor. In 1981, the first shipment of F-15C/Ds to Saudi Arabia did in fact include a small number of CFTs. That same year witnessed the controversial sale of AWACS command and control aircraft to Riyadh, which Congress authorized by an even narrower 52-to-48 vote. In the mid-1990s, the Saudi F-15S fleet was further augmented by sales of special CFTs with weapons hardpoints, allowing the aircraft to carry more weapons at longer ranges. Therefore, when the kingdom deployed fifty F-15Ss to Tabuk airbase in March 2003, it neutralized the final safeguard of Israel's strategic depth and contravened a restriction that had been placed on F-15 sales since 1978.
Saudi Saber Rattling
Ostensibly, the Saudi F-15s were moved to Tabuk in order to provide air cover for U.S. special forces being launched into Iraq's western desert from the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia. Given its reliance on Saudi basing, U.S. Central Command agreed to a temporary move. Since the war, however, Riyadh has resisted both U.S. and Israeli pressure to remove the aircraft from Tabuk. In mid-October, the kingdom exacerbated the growing tension by undertaking a long-planned series of combined-arms exercises in the Red Sea near the Gulf of Aqaba.
Riyadh's decision to move the F-15s to Tabuk in the first place was a purely political gesture -- an expression of independence and reclamation of sovereign territory. Nevertheless, the aircraft are unlikely to remain at the airbase indefinitely. Although Tabuk has excellent wartime facilities, it is not a dedicated F-15 base in terms of hardened aircraft shelters, hangers, and other support infrastructure. Tabuk is also one of the least hospitable and most remote basing locations in the kingdom. Moreover, the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) has traditionally preferred to use Saudi Arabia's own strategic depth to protect its valuable F-15 fleet from the possibility of Israeli preemptive strikes. As a result, the F-15s will probably be moved back to their main operating bases at Dhahran, Khamis Mushayt, Riyadh, and Taif as soon as political attention to the issue recedes.
Saudi Military Weakness
In response to the Tabuk move, Israeli military officials cited the risk that an al-Qaeda operative or a rogue Saudi pilot might fly an F-15 into Israel on a September 11-style suicide mission. This complaint highlights how little concern there is that the kingdom might one day try to use its F-15s in a military strike role against Israel. Although the RSAF is equipped with all the trappings of a long-range strike force (e.g., extended-range F-15s, refueling tankers, combat search and rescue forces), it is not effectively configured for that role. The RSAF is short of F-15 aircrews, and its U.S.-supplied KC-3A refueling tankers are primarily used to keep its U.S.-built AWACS aircraft airborne as they watch the kingdom's borders and to allow its fighter aircraft to maintain patrols over the country's vast expanses. As Israeli director of planning Maj. Gen. Giora Eliand recently noted, the RSAF would have little chance of repeatedly penetrating Israeli airspace; any Saudi strike against Israel would likely be limited to the southern tip of the country.
Despite spending an annual average of $21.2 billion on defense over the past five years, the Saudi military, including the RSAF, has been in decline since its peak effectiveness around 1993. Two factors have caused this decline. First, the kingdom has accumulated a massive, complex force structure, and sustaining it consumes the vast majority of Saudi defense expenditures. Defense spending is unlikely to rise sharply, particularly as internal security receives greater emphasis due to the demonstrated terrorist threat to the kingdom and the elimination of the external Iraqi threat. Moreover, the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) and interior ministry security forces -- estimated by the International Institute for Strategic Studies to cost $7 billion per year -- each have powerful sponsors (SANG commander Crown Prince Abdullah and Interior Minister Prince Nayef) who counter the influence of Defense Minister Prince Sultan.
The second cause of the kingdom's military decline is the slow collapse of U.S.-Saudi military-to-military ties. In the early 1990s, close cooperation between the two militaries seemed to offer a conduit for advanced defense planning and force-management support. Yet, as the decade wore on and faith in a NATO-style U.S.-Saudi relationship declined on both sides, Riyadh recognized that the burden of building and maintaining advanced conventional forces capable of deterring northern Gulf aggressors was simply too much for the kingdom's financial and manpower base to handle. Consequently, most of the projects outlined in the U.S.-Saudi Joint Security Review -- in which the ambitious Saudi defense policy of the early 1990s was conceived -- were never completed. For example, in the five-year plan for 1996-2000, the kingdom's defense budget was underfunded by an average of 13 percent each year.
Implications
At a recent meeting with U.S. deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, Maj. Gen. Amos Yaron, director-general of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, raised concerns about the Tabuk deployment, and the issue will also likely be discussed during the upcoming session of the Joint U.S.-Israel Political Military Group, to be held in Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, the fallout from Riyadh's actions may be minimal in terms of Israeli security. It could have serious effects, however, on future U.S. sales of F-15 support equipment (and, perhaps, other defense-related items) to the Saudis. Riyadh's contravention of longstanding agreements could exacerbate anti-Saudi sentiments in the U.S. legislature and impede future Saudi access to U.S. arms. The House and Senate International Relations committees will no doubt note the kingdom's violation of the conditions of past F-15 sales, and could decide to limit future sales or even curtail support to the existing RSAF F-15 fleet. Over 1,000 Boeing contract employees are required to support this fleet, and more than $2.6 billion has been spent on F-15 maintenance alone since 1993. The seventy-two F-15Ss currently flown by the RSAF represent the kingdom's airpower mainstay for the next twenty years. Without U.S. support, this high-maintenance fleet will quickly fall into disrepair, as the RSAF found out in 2001 when it sharply reduced its spending on contractor support. The longer Riyadh bases F-15 squadrons at Tabuk, the more difficult it will be to get future Saudi arms sales through Congress. Given that it is currently mulling U.S. avionics upgrades on the aging F-15C/D fleet purchased in 1981, Riyadh may not have long to wait before finding out the price it will pay for the rare privilege of thumbing its nose at Israel.
Michael Knights is the Mendelow defense fellow at The Washington Institute.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/t...5.php?CID=1680

Nog een interessant lijstje, afkomstig van een Amerikaanse pro-Israelische lobby-groep.(Voor de duidelijkheid, het is niet omdat ik gebruik maak van hun cijfermateriaal, dat ik het eens ben met hun opinies. Ik zeg dit maar vooraleer er weer één of ander idioot mij een zionist noemt)



World's Top Defense Spenders

1.

United States

$518.1 billion

2.

China

$81.47 billion

3.

France

$45 billion

4.

Japan

$44.31 billion

5.

United Kingdom

$42.84 billion

6.

Germany

$35.06 billion

7.

Italy

$28.18 billion

8.

South Korea

$21.05 billion

9.

Russia

$21 billion

10.

India

$19.04 billion

11.

Saudi Arabia

$18 billion

17.

Israel

$9.44 billion

Only one Arab country, Saudi Arabia, made the list, although Iran, with $4.3 billion in military spending in 2005, just lost the 25th place to Argentina.

De cijfers gaan over het jaar 2005.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...eSpending.html

[john bell hood]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Dr. Strangelove

Je hebt een punt over die vervangstukken. Maar de Israeli's zelf zijn er minder gerust in. Misschien moet je dit artikel eens lezen:

Saudi Saber Rattling By Michael Knights
October 30, 2003

By deploying F-15 strike aircraft to a northwestern airbase in March 2003 and holding large combined-arms exercises near the Gulf of Aqaba in mid-October, Saudi Arabia has indicated its desire to act more freely in asserting its territorial sovereignty vis-�*-vis Israel. These actions -- which Washington and Riyadh might previously have attempted to restrain -- are visible symptoms of the scaling back of U.S.-Saudi military-to-military ties. Although Riyadh's decision to alter longstanding tacit agreements regarding the posture of Saudi forces will not significantly affect the regional military balance, such a move may make Washington more reluctant to offer future arms sales and military support to the kingdom.
Background
In 1978, Carter administration plans to sell ninety-one F-15C/D strike aircraft to Saudi Arabia sparked a bitter debate. In May of that year, the sale was approved by Congress in a narrow 54-to-44 vote, and only after Riyadh accepted restrictions that limited its ability to deploy the aircraft against Israel. Specifically, the aircraft were not to be equipped with conformal fuel tanks (CFTs), preventing them from carrying extra fuel and a full weapons load simultaneously. Riyadh also agreed to refrain from basing the aircraft at the northwestern Tabuk airbase, some 150 kilometers from Israel. In 1992, sales of seventy-two even more advanced F-15S aircraft were placed under the same restrictions; in addition, the tactical early warning suite carried by these aircraft was downgraded to reduce its potential effectiveness against Israeli missiles.
The record of implementation for these restrictions, however, is poor. In 1981, the first shipment of F-15C/Ds to Saudi Arabia did in fact include a small number of CFTs. That same year witnessed the controversial sale of AWACS command and control aircraft to Riyadh, which Congress authorized by an even narrower 52-to-48 vote. In the mid-1990s, the Saudi F-15S fleet was further augmented by sales of special CFTs with weapons hardpoints, allowing the aircraft to carry more weapons at longer ranges. Therefore, when the kingdom deployed fifty F-15Ss to Tabuk airbase in March 2003, it neutralized the final safeguard of Israel's strategic depth and contravened a restriction that had been placed on F-15 sales since 1978.
Saudi Saber Rattling
Ostensibly, the Saudi F-15s were moved to Tabuk in order to provide air cover for U.S. special forces being launched into Iraq's western desert from the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia. Given its reliance on Saudi basing, U.S. Central Command agreed to a temporary move. Since the war, however, Riyadh has resisted both U.S. and Israeli pressure to remove the aircraft from Tabuk. In mid-October, the kingdom exacerbated the growing tension by undertaking a long-planned series of combined-arms exercises in the Red Sea near the Gulf of Aqaba.
Riyadh's decision to move the F-15s to Tabuk in the first place was a purely political gesture -- an expression of independence and reclamation of sovereign territory. Nevertheless, the aircraft are unlikely to remain at the airbase indefinitely. Although Tabuk has excellent wartime facilities, it is not a dedicated F-15 base in terms of hardened aircraft shelters, hangers, and other support infrastructure. Tabuk is also one of the least hospitable and most remote basing locations in the kingdom. Moreover, the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) has traditionally preferred to use Saudi Arabia's own strategic depth to protect its valuable F-15 fleet from the possibility of Israeli preemptive strikes. As a result, the F-15s will probably be moved back to their main operating bases at Dhahran, Khamis Mushayt, Riyadh, and Taif as soon as political attention to the issue recedes.
Saudi Military Weakness
In response to the Tabuk move, Israeli military officials cited the risk that an al-Qaeda operative or a rogue Saudi pilot might fly an F-15 into Israel on a September 11-style suicide mission. This complaint highlights how little concern there is that the kingdom might one day try to use its F-15s in a military strike role against Israel. Although the RSAF is equipped with all the trappings of a long-range strike force (e.g., extended-range F-15s, refueling tankers, combat search and rescue forces), it is not effectively configured for that role. The RSAF is short of F-15 aircrews, and its U.S.-supplied KC-3A refueling tankers are primarily used to keep its U.S.-built AWACS aircraft airborne as they watch the kingdom's borders and to allow its fighter aircraft to maintain patrols over the country's vast expanses. As Israeli director of planning Maj. Gen. Giora Eliand recently noted, the RSAF would have little chance of repeatedly penetrating Israeli airspace; any Saudi strike against Israel would likely be limited to the southern tip of the country.
Despite spending an annual average of $21.2 billion on defense over the past five years, the Saudi military, including the RSAF, has been in decline since its peak effectiveness around 1993. Two factors have caused this decline. First, the kingdom has accumulated a massive, complex force structure, and sustaining it consumes the vast majority of Saudi defense expenditures. Defense spending is unlikely to rise sharply, particularly as internal security receives greater emphasis due to the demonstrated terrorist threat to the kingdom and the elimination of the external Iraqi threat. Moreover, the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) and interior ministry security forces -- estimated by the International Institute for Strategic Studies to cost $7 billion per year -- each have powerful sponsors (SANG commander Crown Prince Abdullah and Interior Minister Prince Nayef) who counter the influence of Defense Minister Prince Sultan.
The second cause of the kingdom's military decline is the slow collapse of U.S.-Saudi military-to-military ties. In the early 1990s, close cooperation between the two militaries seemed to offer a conduit for advanced defense planning and force-management support. Yet, as the decade wore on and faith in a NATO-style U.S.-Saudi relationship declined on both sides, Riyadh recognized that the burden of building and maintaining advanced conventional forces capable of deterring northern Gulf aggressors was simply too much for the kingdom's financial and manpower base to handle. Consequently, most of the projects outlined in the U.S.-Saudi Joint Security Review -- in which the ambitious Saudi defense policy of the early 1990s was conceived -- were never completed. For example, in the five-year plan for 1996-2000, the kingdom's defense budget was underfunded by an average of 13 percent each year.
Implications
At a recent meeting with U.S. deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, Maj. Gen. Amos Yaron, director-general of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, raised concerns about the Tabuk deployment, and the issue will also likely be discussed during the upcoming session of the Joint U.S.-Israel Political Military Group, to be held in Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, the fallout from Riyadh's actions may be minimal in terms of Israeli security. It could have serious effects, however, on future U.S. sales of F-15 support equipment (and, perhaps, other defense-related items) to the Saudis. Riyadh's contravention of longstanding agreements could exacerbate anti-Saudi sentiments in the U.S. legislature and impede future Saudi access to U.S. arms. The House and Senate International Relations committees will no doubt note the kingdom's violation of the conditions of past F-15 sales, and could decide to limit future sales or even curtail support to the existing RSAF F-15 fleet. Over 1,000 Boeing contract employees are required to support this fleet, and more than $2.6 billion has been spent on F-15 maintenance alone since 1993. The seventy-two F-15Ss currently flown by the RSAF represent the kingdom's airpower mainstay for the next twenty years. Without U.S. support, this high-maintenance fleet will quickly fall into disrepair, as the RSAF found out in 2001 when it sharply reduced its spending on contractor support. The longer Riyadh bases F-15 squadrons at Tabuk, the more difficult it will be to get future Saudi arms sales through Congress. Given that it is currently mulling U.S. avionics upgrades on the aging F-15C/D fleet purchased in 1981, Riyadh may not have long to wait before finding out the price it will pay for the rare privilege of thumbing its nose at Israel.
Michael Knights is the Mendelow defense fellow at The Washington Institute.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/t...5.php?CID=1680

Nog een interessant lijstje, afkomstig van een Amerikaanse pro-Israelische lobby-groep.(Voor de duidelijkheid, het is niet omdat ik gebruik maak van hun cijfermateriaal, dat ik het eens ben met hun opinies. Ik zeg dit maar vooraleer er weer één of ander idioot mij een zionist noemt)




World's Top Defense Spenders

1.

United States

$518.1 billion

2.

China

$81.47 billion

3.

France

$45 billion

4.

Japan

$44.31 billion

5.

United Kingdom

$42.84 billion

6.

Germany

$35.06 billion

7.

Italy

$28.18 billion

8.

South Korea

$21.05 billion

9.

Russia

$21 billion

10.

India

$19.04 billion

11.

Saudi Arabia

$18 billion

17.

Israel

$9.44 billion

Only one Arab country, Saudi Arabia, made the list, although Iran, with $4.3 billion in military spending in 2005, just lost the 25th place to Argentina.

De cijfers gaan over het jaar 2005.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...eSpending.html

Het artikel bevestigt mijn stelling.Saudi arabia is geen bedreiging voor Israël en weet wat de prijs is.De geringe bijdrage(wordt in het artikel bevestigd) die het zou het zou kunnen leveren in een hypothetische oorlog tegen Israël staat niet in verhouding tot het prijskaartje dat eraan zou vasthangen.

[StevenNr1]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Dr. Strangelove

Only one Arab country, Saudi Arabia, made the list, although Iran, with $4.3 billion in military spending in 2005, just lost the 25th place to Argentina.

Iran Arabisch

[Dr. Strangelove]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door StevenNr1

Iran Arabisch

Ja, ik weet het. Ik citeerde maar. Het was mij om de cijfers te doen.

Maar te zake, is er niemand die zich afvraagt waarom Saudi-Arabië zo'n gigantisch defensiebudget nodig heeft? Twee maal groter dan dat van Israel, meer dan 4 maal dat van Iran, bijna even groot als dat van Rusland.
(niet te vergelijken met het Amerikaanse natuurlijk, maar dat is dan ook groter dan dat van alle andere landen op het lijstje samen).
Sinds de golfoorlog van 1991 heeft de Amerikaanse defensie-industrie al massa's Saudische oliedollars weten binnen te rijven. En de Belgische wapenfabrieken ook trouwens.