Although a majority of the Senate has signed a resolution to disapprove President Reagan’s proposed sale of $354 million in missiles to Saudi Arabia, a leading Senator warned Thursday that the President would veto such action.
Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz are “absolutely firm” that the sale “is fundamental to our foreign policy,” said Sen. Richard Lugar (R. Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Lugar spoke in support of the testimony before the committee by Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, after all other committee members present questioned the proposed sale. Sens. Alfonse D’Amato (R. NY) and Frank Lautenberg (D. NJ), who are not committee members, testified against selling the missiles to Saudi Arabia.
Sen. Alan Cranston (D. Cal.), who initiated the resolution to reject the sale, said it has been signed by 63 Senators. The sale goes forward unless both the Senate and House pass resolutions of disapproval by May 8.
REAL BATTLE EXPECTED IN THE SENATE
With the Democratic-controlled House expected certainly to reject the sale, the real battle will be in the Senate as it was over the 1981 sale of AWACS to the Saudis. But Lugar stressed that the President has said he would veto a resolution of disapproval, adding that opponents will need a “two-vote strategy.” It would take 67 Senators to override a veto.
“All Senators better begin thinking about our interests,” Lugar said. One such interest he pointed to was Murphy’s assertion that when the Saudis recently purchased British Tornado fighters because they could not get U.S. F-15s it “cost the American economy from $12 to $20 billion.”
The Senators opposed to the sale stressed Saudi Arabia’s opposition to the Middle Eat peace process, its support for anti-American regimes such as Syria and its bankrolling of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Noting that the sale is being labelled a “test” of U.S. friendship for the Saudis, Cranston, said, “The Saudis keep wanting us to prove our friendship. When do they prove their friendship?” D’Amato noted while the U.S. has proved its friendship for the Saudis “over and over” the Saudis “have neither the will nor the determination” to support the U.S.
But Murphy rejected “a direct linkage between our routine arms supply to Saudi Arabia and peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli dispute. This is a narrow approach.” He said rejecting the sale would help Middle East radicals who “argue that the U.S. cannot be friendly with Israel and friendly Arab states alike.” Murphy argued that the Saudis have been helpful to the peace process although most of their efforts are not done publicly.
When asked for specific examples by Sen. Claiborne Pell (D. RI), he said that in 1982 the then Prince Fahd’s Fez Declaration turned around the 1967 Arab declaration never to negotiate with Israel and sought ways to bring those negotiations about. He said the Saudis also supported the efforts by King Hussein of Jordan and the PLO to reach an agreement on negotiations with Israel which Hussein dropped earlier this year.
SALE NEEDED TO SEND A ‘SIGNAL’
But Murphy stressed that the sale is needed to send a “signal” to Iran that the U.S. supports Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states against any threatened attack from the Iranians. “Saudi self-defense reduces the probability of direct U.S. military involvement” in the Gulf, Murphy stressed. He said the sale is not a reward to the Saudis since the Saudis will be protecting U.S. interests in the Gulf.
However, Sen. Joseph Biden (D. Del.) argued that Teheran knows that if Iran attacks Saudi Arabia it would bring in both the U.S. and Israel. When it was suggested that the Iranian air force is not a major threat with most of its planes outdated, Murphy replied that it would be a “serious mistake to underestimate the sting that remains in the Iranian air force or the Iranian military establishment.”
Both Murphy and Richard Armitage, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, said that the missiles the U.S. wants to sell the Saudis would replace its existing weapons which would be depleted by 1991 when delivery is expected to be completed.
Several Senators also expressed concern about providing the Saudis with Stinger shoulder-fired missiles since they fear they could fall into the hands of terrorists. Armitage said the Saudis have taken “stringent” security measures on all missiles. He noted the Stinger system is six-feet long and weights about 50 pounds. “The real terrorist weapon in the Middle East is the (Soviet) SA7,” Armitage said. He said it can be carried like a suitcase.
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