Arms sales to Mideast under the gun

MANAMA, Bahrain, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- Amid growing calls for halting arms sales to repressive Arab regimes, the U.S. administration has delayed a planned $53 million deal with Bahrain. But it's a token gesture at best and is expected to go through eventually.

Not surprising since U.S. officials disclosed in September that the United States had secretly extended a defense agreement with the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom, a key regional financial hub, in 2002 that will run until 2016.

The Pentagon declared the agreement, reached in 1991, is classified and declined comment on the extension. Because it's not a full-blown defense treaty, the agreement didn't require approval from Congress.

The pact allows the United States access to bases in the island state, strategically located in the middle of the Persian Gulf opposite Iran, and the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.

That's a powerful U.S. military force in the volatile region and its importance grows as the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq moves toward completion Dec. 31.

The U.S. State Department announced Oct. 14 that it was putting the Bahrain sale on hold until a government commission set up by King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa in June to investigate Manama's harsh crackdown on protesters demanding the end of the Sunni monarchy.

It's more than likely the report will exonerate the Bahraini government, which would clear the way for the Pentagon to complete the $53 million sale.

It includes 44 Humvee armored vehicles, several hundred TOW anti-tank missiles with associated equipment and support programs. Primary U.S. contractors are AM General and the Raytheon Co.

The United States clearly has strategic interests in Bahrain and doesn't want to see the Al Khalifa monarchy fall as that would jeopardize U.S. bases in Bahrain and boost Iran's influence.

The U.S. Navy is extending its naval base in Manama, which supports more than a dozen U.S. warships. The Navy has taken over the Mina Salman port, which will be large enough to berth Nimitz class aircraft carriers.

The Navy has been in Bahrain since 1973, when the British pulled out of the Persian Gulf, and has built a minor naval station into one of the most crucial bases in the region.

According to the Marine Times newspaper, the U.S. Marine Corps plans to locate one of two new Marine Expeditionary Brigade headquarters in Bahrain under the U.S. Central Command.

Manama authorities claimed the mass protests, mainly by the kingdom's downtrodden majority Shiites, were instigated by Iran, which has long claimed the island state as its territory.

The revolt took place as the Arab world was convulsed by uprisings by pro-democracy protesters that have toppled the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt, both U.S. allies, and overturned the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed by rebel fighters.

Other uprisings are taking place in Syria and Yemen, with some 5,000 people killed since January, most of them by the forces of regimes they seek to topple.

Western human rights organizations claim the weapons used by these repressive regimes, with records of large-scale human rights abuses, were provided by U.S., European and Russian governments and defense companies.

These groups demand tighter regulation of arms sales to such regimes.

Amnesty International said Oct. 18 that many of the world governments calling for political reforms and human rights in the Middle East were the very ones preventing it by selling weapons to those regimes.

Amnesty's report on arms sales to despotic regimes listed Austria, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States as the main suppliers since 2005 to the countries -- Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen -- covered by the study.

Britain has said it plans to tighten export regulations to halt the sale of weapons, ammunition and tear gas to regimes that maintain police states and abuse human rights.

But, like the Americans, Britain and its European partners are coming to rely heavily on military exports to maintain production lines and research and development at a time when defense budgets are being slashed because of the global economic slowdown.

So it wasn't surprising that when British Prime Minister David Cameron visited the gulf in February, when the Arab uprisings were getting into full swing, a posse of executives from U.K. defense companies went with him.