Washington, January 1
The US Defence Department has awarded a $498.2 million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp to supply 18 F-16 aircraft to Pakistan just 10 days after the US Congress slapped restrictions on military aid to Islamabad.

Lockheed will sell 12 F-16C plus six F-16D planes to Pakistan under the contract, the department announced in a list of defence contract awards yesterday, but did not say how soon the fighter jets would be delivered.

The award to Lockheed is in line with a senior US official’s assertion that the Congressional restrictions on providing $50 million in military aid to Pakistan would not affect the sales of F-16 aircraft.

“The F-16 programme is a Pakistani purchase, their money, they’re buying them. And our foreign military finance, our military assistance goes for different purposes and is not involved at this point in the F-16 sales,” said Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs.

“So they will be able to continue that and we will be able to continue our efforts...so they can do the fight against terrorism that they are in,” he said in a media teleconference last month shortly after the Congress linked the military aid to Islamabad’s efforts to fight terror.

Boucher had also expressed confidence that the restrictions would not prevent the Bush administration from providing military aid to Pakistan, which has received about $10 billion in US funding since 2001.

Pakistan is to get 18 new F-16C/D fighters by 2010 besides upgrades for its current fleet of 34 F-16 combat aircraft as part of a $2.1 billion deal for new weapons, avionics, engines, and other equipment for F-16 fighters announced in September last year.

Lockheed, the Pentagon’s No. 1 contractor, won a $144 million contract in 2006 for materials needed to build the F-16s.

In authorising $300 million in aid to Pakistan, the Congress had said $50 million of it can only be used after secretary of state Condoleezza Rice certifies that Pakistan is making “concerted efforts” to prevent terrorists and the Taliban from operating inside its borders.

Boucher said he had little doubt that the administration would get the money. “We are confident that we will be able to report to Congress on the developments in the areas that they have identified,” he said.

Asserting, this is very much part of the counter-terrorism effort, Boucher said: “It goes to TOW missiles. It goes to tactical radios that their forces can use to plan military operations. And it goes to support the programme for P-3C aircraft that help them do maritime patrols.” He added: “Pakistan is currently, for the second time, in command of the Combined Task Force 150 that patrols the seas off Pakistan and the Arabian Gulf to prevent terrorist activities on the high seas.

“And the P-3 programme is a complement to that, so they can work better with us and others in protecting their neighbourhood from threats of terrorism on the high seas. So, in a variety of different ways, our military programmes serve to support their capability.” — IANS