Word: 15s
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...Neill had a similar feeling. On behalf of their Capitol constituencies, both men advised the President last week of widespread congressional opposition to Carter's proposal to sell U.S.-made jet fighters to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. No one objected to the sale of 15 F-15s and 75 F-16s to Israel and few were worried about Egypt's purchase of 50 less sophisticated F-5Es. But a number of Senators and Congressmen, many of them under pressure from the Israeli lobby, were dead set against allowing Saudi Arabia to buy 60 F-15s (seebox...
...they need a military force capable of holding out against attack for at least two or three days−just long enough for a powerful friend to come to their aid. They want that friend to be the U.S., and thus they regard the proposed sale of 60 F-15s, which two U.S. Administrations have supported, as a barometer of that friendship...
...government of Premier Menachem Begin has argued that any F-15s sold to Saudi Arabia would inevitably be used against Israel in the event of war. The Saudis have assured Washington that this is not true−and there is good reason to believe them. Ground maintenance for the F-15s would be handled mostly by American technicians. Thus it would be very difficult to transfer the F-15s to other Arab states. The Saudis also insist they have no intention of basing the planes at their Tabuk airbase, which is only 125 miles from the Israeli port of Eilat...
...military authorities emphasize that the F-15, which is armed with air-to-air missiles, is essentially an air-defense system. While 60 planes would give Saudi Arabia a credible air defense, they would provide only a marginal threat to Israel, which will have at least 40 F-15s of its own by 1982 as well as 75 of the more maneuverable...
...operate offensively, Saudi Arabia's F-15s would have to be equipped with multiple-ejection racks from which bombs and air-to-ground rockets could be launched. The Saudis have not asked to buy any such racks, and the U.S. has insisted that it will not sell them any. The Israelis say the racks could easily be purchased elsewhere−a view Pentagon officials dispute. In any case, if Washington ever decided that the Saudis were misusing the planes, the U.S. could cut off the supply of spare parts...