US to ask Congress to approve F-16 sale to Pakistan

The Bush administration will formally ask Congress to approve the sale of American-made F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, Undersecretary of State Nick Burns said on Thursday.

He made the announcement after talks with Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Khan, who said the package would be scaled-down from an earlier request and include old as well as new aircraft.

After a devastating October 8 earthquake, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said he would postpone the purchase of F-16s -- built by Lockheed Martin Corp. -- while the government assessed how it would meet the costs of reconstruction and rehabilitation in devastated parts of Pakistani Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province.

Burns said he reassured Khan "we are committed to the sale of American F-16 aircraft to Pakistan and we intend to begin (formal) consultations with Congress shortly."

Other than saying it would be a "scaled down request (with) some new and some old" jets, Khan said he could provide no further information. The details of the package "keep getting revised," he told a news conference.

Earlier in the month, Pakistan's cabinet gave its air force clearance to open negotiations to buy 36 Jian-10 fighter aircraft from China and 62 F-16s from the United States.

The shopping list included 36 modified versions of China's Jian-10 aircraft, along with 26 F-16s of Type A and B, and 18 F-16s of the latest Block 50/52 C and D type models, with an option for 18 more, defense officials in Islamabad said at the time, confirming a report in the Business Recorder newspaper.

The newspaper, citing an official document, said the government also gave approval for purchase of Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missiles, targeting pods and joint direct attack munitions.

Since the earthquake, the international community has offered over $6 billion in aid and soft loans to help Pakistan recover from the disaster. Though no official figures have been released, the cost of the F-16s alone is expected to be around $2.5 billion.

The costs for the Jian-10 and the BVR missiles are also estimated to run into billions of dollars.

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Well the plant which makes F-16s in Fort Worth Texas is hoping Pakistan will buy them. I bet the Indian government will raise a few eyebrows, they have traditionally opted to purchase cheap Russian fighters and faily obsolete European fighters.

I guess if we a confronted we could call the F-16 on the verge of obsolescents, the F-16A, a single-seat model, first flew in December 1976. The first operational F-16A was delivered in January 1979, so that makes it a thirty year old design. I'm surprised they havn't palmed it off on the Marine Corps.

Are you just fine with us selling whatever weapons we've got to whomever wants them?

Not carrier capable, eh? Methinks it'd be a blue bucks purchase, so it would hafta be carrier capable!Are you just fine with a country not purchasin' from us, but gettin' weaponry as good or better from somebody else? Are you just fine with the loss of even more manufacturin' jobs in this country due to idealism? Are you just fine with other nations bein' able to outfit their military cheaper than we can our own 'cause they don't hafta deal with the restrictions American manufacturers do due to idealism?

It'd be great if nations stopped armin' themselves for war, but methinks 'tain't gonna happen. While commendable, idealism has unintended consequences, eh?

What's a blue bucks purchase?

Not sure I know what you mean about idealism here. Aren't there some countries we shouldn't be supplying with weapons, airplanes, technology, etc. even if means they buy their stuff elsewhere? I suppose the country that comes to mind right now is Iran. And if that's true, then what do you think the factors should be in the decision of whether the US sells a country military equipment?

Navy and Marine Corps budgetin' is a bit more coordinated and complicated than that of the other services. Some items, like carrier capable aircraft, are used by both services in combined organizations (e.g. Marine F-18 and EA-6 aircraft squadrons are found in some of the carrier air wings and routinely deploy when the carrier they're assigned to deploys). These items are procured through Navy/Marine combined fundin' (blue bucks) rather than Marine Corps specific funds (green bucks), eh?I suppose there are, and methinks Iran is a good example. Pakistan is a nation that does often cooperate with us, so methinks they wouldn't fall into this category.

Seems like we need to consider whether 'tis beneficial to sell stuff to 'em to bring or keep them into a more cooperative state of mind and whether other nations'll sell them stuff just as capable. Remember too, there be nations out there like France and Russia that'll even sell arms to rogue nations even when a UN mandated arms embargo is in force. France is currently marketin' the Rafale & Eurofighter (both superior to anything in our current inventory), and Russia the Mig-29 & Mig-35 (both at least equal to anything we've got) to anyone that'll buy 'em.

It might bother me selling an up to date fighter plane to them. The F-16 can make hash out of most anything the Russians or Chinese manufacture but would be toast up against the next generation of American fighter aircraft.

Beside's it will be good for the Fort Worth Texas economy and Lockheed Martin. Since my Brother in Law works as a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin I'm glad he's going to get to keep working.

I suppose you'd prefer they buy Jian-10's. Keep the Chinese busy building more junk and making more in the world trade arena.

Isn't the new F-22 the top dog on the block?

Methinks 'tis not even close to the European consortium's new EuroFighter or the land based version of the French Rafale. 'Twould seem the F-22 is a very old design, held up too long in preproduction and now's probably not worth the money to put it into production, eh? IMHO 'tis time to go right to the F-35 in all its variants and get back on top again!

I'm glad someone knows something about the
high-tech stuff...me, once it's past lettin' the bolt
fly forward, flippin' the selector switch and steppin'
out...well, the rest was up to the radio operator.