Venezuela Arms Buys Irk U.S. Officials

[struggle4progress]

<snip> Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in an April 5 interview with The Miami Herald called Spain’s arms sales to Venezuela a “mistake” and questioned the oil-rich South American country’s need for so many AK-47s.

In March 15 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Bantz Craddock, commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), noted that Venezuela’s military now includes up to 80,000 service members and questioned the fate of “excess new weapons and…displaced weapons.” The concern is that extra arms might end up in the hands of Colombian guerrillas or other nonstate actors. SOUTHCOM is in charge of U.S. military operations in and relations with Central and South America.

Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez Herrera told Arms Control Today April 21 that the recent purchases are part of a military modernization program that has been planned for more than 10 years. He said the objective is to “increase operational capabilities, reduce equipment failures, and replace outdated and discontinued equipment whose life is between 20 and 25 years of operation.” Herrera dismissed U.S. criticism, noting that “no national or international norm is being violated.”

The U.S. government’s top concerns about Venezuela’s behavior is its “undemocratic direction” under President Hugo Chavez and tolerance for terrorist groups, Colombian guerrillas, and drug traffickers seeking safe haven within its borders, according to a Department of State official interviewed April 18 by Arms Control Today. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said March 31 that Venezuela “is playing a destabilizing role in the region.” <snip>

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_05/VenezuelaArms.asp

Must be pulling some stinky ops off the shelf ...

[Career Prole]

1. "...and questioned the fate of “'excess new weapons'..."

:rofl:

General Bantz Craddock, commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), noted that Venezuela’s military now includes up to 80,000 service members and questioned the fate of “excess new weapons and…displaced weapons.”

Oh yeah...a country shouldn't have more guns than it has soldiers to carry them.

God forbid we should allow excess guns!

[jobycom]

2. Yeah, right, Rums is afraid they'll be used by Columbian guerrillas

He's afraid they'll be used to fight off our next coup attempt, or even our own soldiers if we decide to invade.

[IChing]

3. but meanwhile the US

US defence budget will equal Rest Of the World combined "within 12 months"

By Guy Anderson Editor of Jane's Defence Industry 04 May 2005

Defense expenditure in the US will equal that of the rest of the world combined within 12 months, making it "increasingly pressing" for European contractors to develop a "closer association" with the US, corporate finance group PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says.
Its report - 'The Defence Industry in the 21st Century' by PwC's global aerospace and defence leader Richard Hooke - adds that "the US is in the driving seat", raising the prospect of a future scenario in which it could "dominate the supply of the world's arms completely".

The US defence budget reached US$417.4 billion in 2003 - 46 per cent of the global total.
Less than two per cent of the US defence budget is spent outside its home market, the report notes, and of this around one per cent goes to UK contractors.

Hooke says: "The message for management teams in all this - apart from the obvious for US contractors to monopolise the industry - is that they will fail to maximise value if they fail to define accurately the business segment in which they operate.
"For Europe and the UK in particular, it means, right now, an increasingly pressing need to develop a closer association with the US market."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1766876&mesg_id=1766876

[IChing]

4. Here is another reason why:

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20050503/39788813.html

MOSCOW, May 3. (RIA Novosti) - It seems that Russia's Mikoyan-Gurevich and Sukhoi corporations will compete against each other in Venezuela. The country's Defense Ministry is considering purchasing Su-27 fighter-bombers and Su-25 ground-attack jets even though it has not completed talks on buying MiG-29-SMT air-superiority fighters, a leading business daily, Vedomosti, writes.

A delegation of Venezuela's Defense Ministry saw Sukhoi aircraft at a defense technology exhibition for Latin America that ended in Rio de Janeiro on April 29. Venezuela could buy Su-25s for its navy and Su-27 for its air force. In all, two squadrons, comprising 10 to 12 Su-25s and Su-27s, might be purchased.

In October 2004, Moscow promised to sell defense systems worth $500 million to the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. The first contract for the delivery of 10 Mil Mi-17 and Mi-26 helicopters, as well as 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles worth $120 million, was signed in February. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld complained then that Venezuelan weapons could fall into the hands of Colombian rebels and other anti-U.S. forces in Latin America.

Venezuela is experiencing problems with its military aircraft because the United States has refused to sell spare parts for the 22 F-16 fighters that were bought before Chavez's election, Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Center for Analyzing Strategies and Technologies, said. In his opinion, Moscow could sell Su-25s and Su-27s from its air-force surplus because their batch production has stopped. In that case, the entire contract would cost about $250 million, the paper writes.