Posted on 12/12/2004 8:31:17 AM PST by knighthawk
MADRID, Spain (AP) - Spain has agreed to acquire a second-hand battery of U.S.-made Patriot missiles to boost its defenses, the government said Sunday.
Spain's Socialist government will buy the weapons from Germany, fulfilling an accord undertaken by its conservative predecessor, according to a statement from Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's office.
The purchase was approved at a Cabinet meeting on Friday but not widely reported until Sunday.
At a NATO summit in 2002 in Prague, Spain's then-conservative government committed to acquiring a capability to shoot down ballistic missiles "because the appearance of these has become one of the main, new threats to countries,'' the statement said, without elaborating.
The newspaper El Mundo said Spain will pay Germany euro100 million (euro130 million) for a battery of at least 64 of the missiles, and they will be installed initially in the southern Andalusia region to help protect the Strait of Gibraltar.
The Defense Ministry declined to comment on the price and location of the missiles.
El Mundo quoted a ministry official as saying their installation near the narrow, strategic waterway separating Spain from North Africa should not be viewed as a threat to Morocco, and that the missiles will not be stationed in Andalusia permanently.
The commander in chief of the Spanish army, General Jose Antonio Garcia Gonzalez, told the newspaper that the Patriot missiles will give Spain's armed forces their first weapon for shooting down missiles.
Patriot missiles became famous in the Persian Gulf war of 1991 when U.S. forces fired them to shoot down Scud missiles launched by Iraq.
The Pentagon and the missiles' manufacturer, Raytheon, claimed a rate of success of up to 80 percent. But investigators for the U.S. Congress later determined the rate was 9 percent. The Pentagon has spent more than US$3 billion improving the Patriots since then.
Ping
This secondhand resale makes a strong argument for the selling of our SERVICES not our PRODUCTS. If we sold a 'Patriot Missle Defense Service' instead of the missles and training, our own troops would man the battle stations and controls and the US would still own them. When we release ownership to another entity we potentially put these things in our enemies' hands. Not good. The business model of government prime defense contractors making money must be reconsidered, regardless of how ruthless a free-market capitalist global economy we'd prefer to have globally--because much of the globe is NOT free-market capitalist but totalitarian expansionist Marxist/fascist, including China and the Nation of Islam--all with greedy and/or hateful eyes fixed for some reason upon US.
Let ZapaZero buy his missiles from one of the many Islamic terrorist groups he thinks Spain has a 'truce' with.
Of course ZapaZero will discover that THOSE missiles are usually used to shoot down civilian airliners and helicopters.
Defense from what? Spain already sold itself out to Al Queda and france-arabia.
Cut out the Islamo-Fascist middle-man and just buy them directly from France or Russia! Like Saddam did under the U.N.'s oil-for-bribes program.
I thought the Spaniels already surrendered...
Last time I checked,American built/designed weapons can't be sold by one nation to another without Washington's consent.So you would have to assume that the US govt was also part of this deal as Spain would need to depend on the US for tech support & spares.Afterall,it is also part of the JSF & has built Aegis equipped ships.
I'm certain that the sale was OKed by the Pentagon. Foreign military sales always come with transfer restrictions. The Patriots have limited ballistic missile defense capability against "Scud like" and cruise missile threats. They are nearly worthless agains ICBM's.
It would be next to impossible for Spain to maintain the system in good condition without technical and material assistance from the U.S., in any event.
Great minds think alike.
I found it pretty amusing reading a report of how an Indian military delegation was upset that the US was only offering them older PAC-2 missiles instead of the advanced PAC-3 variant.The US had last year pressurised Israel from selling it's Arrow missile system to India ,which the Indian military wanted to integrate with the Russian S-300 ,which it already operates in limited numbers.The irony is that the PAC-3 has been offered to Slammic states like Egypt & Saudi Arabia.
Uh-huh. Ask the Navy about the Pentagon approving the sale of classified American "silent screw" technology used by our submarines that was sold by Toshiba to the Soviets.
Don't think that the Pentagon said "okey-dokey" to that little transaction since they were pretty upset by it all.
Sometimes, what happens after things leave our direct control, doesn't always mesh with the rules of the game.
& IIRC,Toshiba has not exactly been treated with open arms since then.I was not talking about rouge sales(either by a nation or a company/group of people) which take place all the the time & involves Russian,American,British & French arms & most often results in sanctions or termination of existing contracts.
Sales like that of Toshiba's are done in secret & rarely get the media coverage that this current transaction has got.
& in the long run,both Germany & Spain end up losing access to spares & tech transfer for the Patriot??What good does it do them.Remember,both Spain & Germany still cooperate on numerous projects with the US.
If you read the article,you would have noticed that the groundwork for this deal started in 2002,long before the rift with Germany & when Aznar was still in power.
This was the German Government, not a private company and it was equipment, not technology. The Patriot is a high-maintenance relationship, Spain would have to turn their entire aerospace industry in a Patriot support group to keep the system alive by themselves.
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