The current mission of former Cabinet Minister Aharon Yariv to Washington is to persuade various Congressional bodies that Israel’s military needs were greater than the U.S. Defense Department’s assessment of them, government sources disclosed today. Yariv, a reserve general who was Minister of Information in the early months of the Rabin government and former chief of military intelligence, left for the U.S. Sunday on a two week trip to explain Israel’s arms requirements to American officials.
The government sources indicated today that his mission was prompted by the “absurd” situation that has evolved in Washington whereby the Pentagon and the CIA were arguing for a smaller military aid package for Israel than requested by the White House and Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Israel has taken issue with the Pentagon’s assessment of the Arab states’ military potential, especially the size of the forces the Arabs would be capable of hurling at Israel in the event of a new war.
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