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Musharraf seeks Predators and 60 long-delayed F-16s

By Bill Gertz
The Wshington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
Friday, June 27, 2003

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf yesterday
said he hopes the United States will sell his country
sophisticated military hardware for its defense needs,
including F-16 jets and Predator unmanned aerial
vehicles, but if the request is denied he will seek
weapons from other countries.

"Pakistan will not compromise on its strategy of
minimum deterrence," Gen. Musharraf told editors and
reporters during a luncheon at The Washington Times.

"So we obviously will look everywhere to maintain the
strategy of minimum deterrence. Wherever it may be in the
world, we will look for it."

Gen. Musharraf, who earlier this week received a $3
billion aid package from the White House, said Pakistan's
security is being threatened by India's growing military
power. The aid will be divided equally between economic
and military assistance, White House officials said.

The request for Predators joins a military
relationship including a long dispute over delivery of 60
F-16s blocked from export by the United States'
nonproliferation legislation in 1992.

Gen. Musharraf said the Predator is needed to help
Pakistan in its intelligence-oriented war against al
Qaeda terrorists.

"We have 500,000 troops in our army and we know how
to fight," Gen. Musharraf said. "Just give us technical
assistance. Tell us where these people are. Locate them
for us. Locate them with your satellites; use your UAVs;
give us the UAVs. Give us the eyes and ears and we will
act."

To date the United States has not exported Predators.
It is considered one of the U.S. military's leading-edge
tools. The Predator drone comes in two versions, one
limited to intelligence-gathering and one equipped with
Hellfire antitank missiles.

Predators were used to track and attack fleeing
Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan in 2001,
and saw action in Iraq this year. A missile-armed CIA
Predator hit a car full of al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen
in November.

"I won't reiterate the requirement for F-16s," Gen.
Musharraf said. "It has been said so many times. When you
ask a Pakistani in the street, he will tell you about the
F-16s. For the man in the streets, he will talk of either
F-16s or Kashmir."

Pakistan purchased 40 F-16 jets between 1983 and
1987. An additional order of 60 was blocked by an
amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act in 1992. The
legislation prohibited U.S. arms sales to Pakistan unless
the president could certify that country did not have
nuclear weapons.

Some of the fighters had already been paid for with
about $280 million in advance payments.

Regarding Pakistan's ties to North Korea, Gen.
Musharraf said he has seen no proof that previous
Pakistani governments helped the communist state on
nuclear weapons, and insisted that during his rule, which
began in 1999, no Pakistani nuclear technology was sent
to North Korea.

"Let me say for a surety as far as my government is
concerned, in the past three years there were no such
contacts, and there was no such collaboration," Gen.
Musharraf said.

Pakistan purchased shoulder-fired antiaircraft
missiles from North Korea during the recent 10-month
period of tensions between India and Pakistan, he said.

"We realized that there is an imbalance in the air
especially," he said. "And we thought that can be
neutralized by having more surface-to-air missiles,
shoulder-fired, conventional, which we purchased for our
own security."

Gen. Musharraf also said there have been no
discussions with China on Beijing's use of the deepwater
port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea coast of western
Pakistan, as a naval base.

China is helping to build the port, which is
strategically located near the Persian Gulf and
eventually will be a major terminal for gas and oil piped
from Central Asia, he said.

"We have never once discussed with China the use of
this facility for military purposes," Gen. Musharraf
said. "Never has it been discussed. This is putting ideas
into the minds of people that this is a Chinese naval
base."

Gen. Musharraf said Gwadar is strictly an economic
benefit to Pakistan. China was asked to help build the
port by providing financing and technical expertise, he
said.

Pakistan also hopes the port will be a tourist
attraction. It juts out from the coast like a hammerhead
and is an ideal deep-water facility.

China has raised alarms among some in the Pentagon by
its efforts to secure port facilities near major
strategic waterways, including both sides of the Panama
Canal.

U.S. officials say China in the mid-1990s provided
key design and components for Pakistan's nuclear arms.
But Gen. Musharraf insisted that Pakistan's arms
scientists are completely self-sufficient.

Pakistan has had a defense relationship with China
for decades "based on a threat perception" regarding
India, he said.

"I think the feeling that we needed to have a
strategic relationship for our own security was an
answer," he said.

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Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 by JohnHuang2
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