‘IAF under US pressure in aircraft deal with Qatar

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‘IAF under US pressure in aircraft deal with Qatar
Tweet Topic Started: Jul 17 2005, 09:30 AM (385 Views)
spiderweb6969	Jul 17 2005, 09:30 AM Post #1
Posts: 2,700 Group: Elite Member #427 Joined: April 11, 2005	‘IAF under US pressure in aircraft deal with Qatar’ DH News Service New Delhi/Bangalore: The hand of powerful US armament lobby is suspected behind IAF’s quoting wholly unacceptable price for the Qatar’s aircraft The quoting of low price by the Indian Air Force (IAF) for the purchase of 12 secondhand Mirage 2000-5 fighters from Qatar was reportedly done under “subtle pressure” from the US that is pressuring India to buy its F 16/F18 multi- role combat aircraft (MRCA). Armament industry sources said the IAF’s last month offer of around $ 375 million to the Qatari authorities for 12 Mirage 2000-5 aircraft clearly signified that India was not “serious” about acquiring the fighters. The IAF’s offer is around half of the $ 750 million that Qatar is quoting for the Mirage fighters it had acquired from France’s Dassault eight years ago. “Through its offer India appears to be merely going through the formality of making a bid for the fighters, knowing fully well that it would not be acceptable to the Qatari’s,” an overseas source involved in the negotiations said. The US pressure could be the reason behind it, the source added. Mirage 2000-5 is one of the four aircraft alongside the USA’s F 16 and F 18 competing for the IAF’s multi-million dollar proposal to acquire 126 fighters. The other two competitors are Russia’s MiG 29 M and Sweden’s Saab-Grippen MRCA. The decision to acquire the 12 Mirage 2000-5’s from Qatar was taken earlier this year by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS ) chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The CCS was endorsing the commitment by the previous NDA administration two years ago to purchase the used Mirage 2000-5’s in order to prevent Qatar from selling them to Pakistan. This was when the IAF was in advanced negotiations exclusively with Dassault for 126 Mirage 2000-5 fighters to strengthen its strategic deterrence capability. During his visit to Qatar in January 2003, former deputy prime minister L K Advani had reportedly told the Sheikhdom that India would curtail an important gas deal if the jets were sold to Pakistan and not to the IAF. Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani visited Delhi in April 2005 and held a series of meetings with senior Indian officials including Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee indicating that the Mirage 2000-5 was a “done deal” barring formalities. Dassault was also to be part of the agreement with the IAF, involved in refurbishing the fighters before the aircraft joined service sometime later this year. In June, an IAF delegation led by S K Sharma, joint secretary (acquisitions) and a two-star IAF officer visited Qatar and proposed paying $ 375 million for the fighter jets, an amount “wholly unacceptable” to the Emirate, a foreign armament source said. “The IAF’s inexplicably low offer is bound to be turned down,” an armament industry source said, hinting that the omnipotent US armament lobby was at work. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, he said, was already under attack by the Communist parties for “giving in” to the US lobby in signing the Defence Framework Agreement. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is going to the US later this week during which the purchase of the American fighters would feature prominently amongst other military matters, a senior Defence Ministry source said. Defence analysts said Washington’s feud with France over the latter’s opposition to the Iraq war had recently been manifesting itself in armament sales. The US had successfully “spiked” France’s deals for fighters with Poland and South Korea recently, they said.



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