The House voted 356-62 Wednesday to reject a request from President Reagan to sell a $354 million missile package to Saudi Arabia. The resolution is almost certain to be vetoed by the President. The House vote followed an unprecedented move by the Senate Tuesday evening approving an identical resolution rejecting the sale.
The arms proposal was shot down in the Senate by a 73-22 vote and opponents of the sale have indicated they will win the two-thirds majority that might ultimately be necessary to override a veto. Both Houses of Congress must override to kill the sale.
Congress was heading for a first-time rejection of an arms sale request earlier this year when the Administration, recognizing certain defeat of its proposed weapons package for Jordan, backed down at the last moment.
Senate opponents of the Saudi sale had been predicting that they would not only win a majority–in itself a first in the Senate annals on arms sales votes–but would turn out the 67 votes needed to override a veto. The unexpectedly large margin by which the resolution was passed indicated it would take more than a few dropouts in the almost inevitable battle to come to thwart an override attempt.
LARGE MARGIN ESPECIALLY SIGNIFICANT
The large margin was especially significant because it came in spite of a decision by both the Israeli government and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) not to challenge the sale. That decision stemmed from an interest in avoiding tensions with the Administration at a time when U.S.-Israel relations are flourishing, especially since the type of weapons involved are already in the Saudi arsenal.
The arms package included Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
But Sen. Alan Cranston (D. Calif.), who had taken the lead in Senate opposition to the sale, maintained before and after AIPAC bowed out of the battle that the Saudis have not proved reliable friends of the U.S. and that it would therefore not be in U.S. interests to supply them with new arms.
Asked at his Tokyo news conference Tuesday night about the Senate’s action, Reagan quipped, “Just wait until the old man gets home.” But in a statement Wednesday morning, Cranston warned that the President, who returned to Washington Wednesday afternoon, “may be in for a surprise.”
“Now that the ‘old man’ is back home he’ll find that the situation in Congress is the same as it was before he left. The Senate made clear that it does not consider it in the national security interest of the U.S. to sell advanced weapons to nations that consistently scorn U.S. interests and I am certain that the House is about to take the same position and just as emphatically,” Cranston said.
Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R. Kan.) and Richard Lugar (R. Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, supported the Saudi arms sale. Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, Lugar warned that the U.S. faces “serious and possible long-lasting damage” to its interests in the region should it reject the request for arms needed to defend the security interests of a pro-Western nation.
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