Further Postponement Looms for Submission to Congress of Proposed Arms Sale to Saudis

Secretary of State Alexander Haig would not say Friday whether the Reagan Administration’s proposed multi-billion dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia would be submitted to Congress this year.

Testifying before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Haig said it would be “difficult to predict” when the proposal for the sale of enhanced equipment for F-15s and AWACS surveillance planes would be ready. When committee chairman Sen. Lowell Weicker (R. Conn.) asked him if the proposal would be submitted to Congress this year, Haig replied, “I wouldn’t even want to prejudge that.”

Haig noted that the proposal is now being worked out with Congressional leaders. As he said in his testimony earlier in the week before a House appropriations subcommittee, Haig said that once the technicalities of the proposed sale, especially for the AWACS, are worked out, many of the critics in Congress will change their minds.

Haig denied that the U.S. was seeking agreement from the Saudis for a U.S. ground base in Saudi Arabia. “This is a non-issue,” he said. He added that the U.S. was talking about other issues and the Saudis have been cooperative.

Meanwhile, the House Foreign Affairs Committee adopted by a 14-11 vote last Thursday a resolution that would require the U.S. to receive Congressional approval for U.S. leasing of military equipment.

Rep. Tom Lantos(D. Cal.), who introduced the resolution, said the measure was needed to close a “loophole” whereby Congress could reject a proposed sale of military equipment but which the Administration could then lease to a foreign country. A spokesperson for Lantos said that while the Congressman did not specifically mention the AWACS, this was one of the items he had in mind in bringing up the measure.