Karl Jones Dot Com » Selling Tanks to Iraq

“Iraq’s Ministry of Defense is considering buying 140 of the United States’ most advanced tanks, at approximately $4 million to $5 million per tank, plus hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of support equipment to go along with the tanks. “
- USA Today: Link.

You can sell a lot of different weapon systems to foreign militaries, but where exactly do we get off in selling the Iraqi army our top military weapon systems? Do they rank with the Saudis now? We just got done beating these guys a few years ago. Do we want to come back some day and stare down the 120mm tubes of our own “used tanks”? And as we’re growing our Army’s end-strength, is there such a situation where we sell “used tanks” instead of refurbing them and using them ourselves?

This isn’t a smart decision. Give the Iraqis some old APCs or let some other countries sell them tanks. Nothing good will come of this other than profits for the military-industrial complex.

- Jason Sigger @ Armchair Generalist: Link.

Administrator Says:
August 24th, 2008 at 9:22 pm

Some interesting comments over at Armchair Generalist.

Example:

And lost in the rush to cram profit into our arms manufacturers is the fact that Iraq is barely a Second World society. We keep our Abrams fleet running with the advantages of an immense technological economic base backed by the world’s wealthiest defense budget. These guys were strained to keep Saddam’s 1970’s Soviet-era armored formations running and, from what we know now, they mostly didn’t.

It’s not just the tanks. It’s the PMCS that the Iraqi tankers won’t pull, the DS and depot maintentance that don’t have, and the enemy they won’t be fighting. Accountant is dead-on target here; these guys don’t need 2008 weapons. They need good, solid weapons from the 1960s through 80s that they operate and maintain on their budget at their level of competence.

Y’know what this reminds me of? The way we armed the ARVN. I’ll bet the NVA appreciated the hell out of all those M-16’s. What was the old saying? Oh, yeah: “Never fired and only dropped once.”

- FDChief @ Armchair Generalist: Link.

Administrator Says:
August 24th, 2008 at 9:32 pm

Another selection from the comments over at Armchair Generalist:

5) Sum: it is a risk because you cannot be sure that Iraq will remain a US friendly nation, but it’s also a chance to win them over to our side by offering them a seat ‘at the big man’s table’. Condition of the tanks in question seems irrelevant to the major political objective of securing Iraq as a pro-West/Pro-US nation capable of interoperability.

- charliebrownsteacher @ Armchair Generalist: Link.

Selling Tanks to Iraq

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