Word: 15s
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...describe Saudi Arabia as "needing" 60 F-15s, the most advanced planes, for defense [May 8]. Come on! F-5Es (the ones Carter proposes to sell to Egypt) would be adequate for defense against Iraq and South Yemen; even 160 F-15s would not be enough to protect Saudi Arabia from a highly improbable attack by Iran. Saudi F-15s would be of no use except in an Arab war against Israel...
...cannot help finding it inconsistent, if not hypocritical, for the government of Israel to lobby so aggressively against the sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia, while Israel has exported arms to a Marxist regime supported by the Russians and Cubans in Ethiopia...
...Israel can ship arms to our adversaries which are directly across the Red Sea from a nation that provides 10% of America's oil supply, why should there be any question about our selling F-15s, an essentially defensive weapon, to a more reliable ally, which is surrounded by radical leftist regimes in South Yemen, Ethiopia and Iraq...
Beyond that, the Saudis feel that they have effectively answered most of the Israeli charges regarding possible use of the F-15s. As Prince Fahd told TIME (see NATION), he is willing to pledge that the planes will not be transferred to another Arab state in the event of war. The Saudis have no intention of stationing the planes at Tabuk, just southeast of the Israeli border. Explains Prince Saud, the Foreign Minister: "Israeli warplanes overflew Tabuk 140 times during the past year. We certainly would not put our planes in such a vulnerable position...
...fact is that during the 1973 war, the Saudis moved what planes they had as far as possible away from the fighting. They could not risk losing them. So serious are the Saudis' defense problems that the F-15s could hardly buy the country more than a couple of days of breathing time if it were attacked by any enemy. At the very most, the Saudis have only 96,500 men in their armed forces and reserves, including 41,000 national guardsmen, who are not considered front-line troops. Their air force consists of five squadrons of American-made...