Selling Arms to the Saudis
This sure sounds like a great idea.
The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.
The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.
So basically, the weapons manufactuerers are asking for permission to sell billions of dollars of equipment to the Gulf Arab states, and as a result of the Arab states getting weapons, the US taxpayer is going to be hit up for even more billions of dollars to buy even more of these weapons sytems to give to Israel. Good deal if you're a bomb-maker.
Forget the Israel lobby, or the Saudi lobby, or even Big Oil. When you follow the money, it's the guys building weapons who are making the most of the US's foreign policy in the Middle East.
