Word: 15s
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...addition to the AWACS, the Saudi deal included extra fuel tanks and Sidewinder missiles to extend the range and increase the punch of 60 F-15s already ordered. On merit, the Administration's case for approving the sale was defensible, if not entirely convincing. The West has a vital stake in Saudi Arabia's oil and the stability of the Saudi regime in its turbulent region. To fend off Soviet encroachment and the threats of neighbors serving as Moscow's proxies, the U.S. must provide the Saudis with adequate defenses. The sale would not shift the balance of military strength...
...with arguments remarkably similar to those that Reagan was to use three years later, chiefly that the U.S. had to increase its influence in the Middle East by helping moderate Arab states to defend themselves. Harold Brown, then Secretary of Defense, had to pledge that Saudi Arabia's F-15s would not be equipped with such offensive gear as range-extending fuel tanks and bomb racks...
...supporting the AWACs sale. As Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.) pointed out in the Senate debate last week, Brown had written a letter to Congress on May 9, 1978--at the time of the debate over the sale of F-15 fighter planes--which stated that F-15s would "not be equipped with the special features that could give it additional range...
...policy became riddled with exceptions: AW ACS were promised to Iran, F-15s were sold to Saudi Arabia, and F-5Es to Egypt. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the Carter Administration's policy of restraint was largely forgotten...
...protect the interests of all parties. Opponents also warn that the Saudi government is unstable, and that if it fell, as had the pro-U.S. regime of the late Shah of Iran, the sophisticated weaponry could end up in anti-American hands. Even with AWACS and F-15s, foes of the deal insist, Saudi Arabia's air power would be no match for a Soviet move against the oil sources, while no smaller nation in the region, like Iran or South Yemen, would dare make such a move. Anyway, say opponents, Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Ahmed...