The Hindu : No move to sell F-16s to Pakistan, says U.S.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 28, 2004

International

International

No move to sell F-16s to Pakistan, says U.S.

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, MARCH 27. The State Department has said that there is no move to sell Pakistan F-16 fighter jets and that the U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, made no reference to this during his testimony to a Senate Appropriations panel on Thursday.

A State Department official speaking to The Hindu disputed an agency report on this. The official said the only things Gen. Powell was talking about in an exchange with Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina were night vision goggles and helicopters and that too in the context of the recent fighting on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to take on the Al-Qaeda network and its leader, Osama bin Laden.

The exchanges between Gen. Powell and Senator Hollings had not been properly transcribed in part due to the facilities available in the hearing room. In fact, the agency that put out the transcript said that "due to the location of this hearing in a room without a public address system, this transcript will contain numerous inaudible portions."

And there were portions of the transcript that were put in brackets with a question mark meaning that this portion was either inaudible or difficult to decipher. And the word "Mirage" was in the transcript but within brackets and with a question mark setting off the thinking that perhaps Senator Hollings meant F-16s as opposed to the French-built aircrafts.

But the official at Foggy Bottom said that an internal State Department transcript did not have the word "Mirage" at all — rather that Senator Hollings was enquiring whether the night vision goggles had "arrived" in Pakistan.

Gen. Powell told Senator Hollings that the administration was "working" on the helicopter issue and stressed that Pakistan needed more helicopter capacity in that part of the tribal areas.

On night vision goggles, the Secretary of State said that when he was there recently, the equipment was not there in Pakistan because Islamabad had not signed the LOA — Letter of Offer and Acceptance — and that it was being worked out.

Incidentally, the agency transcript agency did not have LOA either — it had used the word "yellow way" in brackets and with a question mark.

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