The 100th Congress Adjourns

By Dennis J. Wamsted

A Foreign Aid Bill

For the first time since 1981, and days before it adjourned for the 1988 elections, Congress enacted free-standing foreign aid appropriations legislation (H.R. 4637/Public Law 100-461) for fiscal year 1989. The bill, which was approved by Congress just minutes before October 1, the first day of the new fiscal year, and not signed into law by President Reagan until well into the next morning, served as the vehicle for a number of measures designed to benefit Israel. Several amendments that would have severely damaged US relations with key gulf Arab allies also figured prominently in the congressional debate.

Predictably, the bill includes $3 billion in military and economic aid for Israel. These grants—$1.8 billion in Foreign Military Sales (FMS) credits and $1.2 billion in cash from the Economic Support Fund (ESF)—comprise a staggering 39.8 percent of the total appropriated by Congress for these two key foreign aid accounts. In keeping with its now standard practice, Congress has absolved Israel of the need to repay any of its annual stipend.

In addition, Congress extended for yet another year a provision empowering Israel to spend a sizable portion of its military aid to bolster the country's domestic defense industry. Normally, the US requires that money appropriated through the FMS program be spent by the foreign recipients to purchase weaponry and related defense services from American suppliers. In recent years, however, special exceptions have been approved for Israel. For 1989, Congress has earmarked $550 million to be spent by Israel to spend to support its struggling domestic defense industry. Of this, $400 million can be spent within Israel itself, while the remaining $150 million must be spent in the US for research and development services.

Beyond this now seemingly standard aid package, Congress adopted a new, little-noticed provision that will provide substantial benefits to the cash-strapped Israeli government starting in 1989. The new provision, hidden innocuously under the heading "Fair Pricing," will save the Israeli government upward of $90 million over the next several years as it completes its planned purchase of 60 US-manufactured F-16s (replacements for the Israeli government's now-canceled Lavi aircraft development program). The pricing provision deletes contract administration and research and development costs from the price of the F-16s being sold to the Israeli government, effectively reducing the cost by $1.5 million per plane.

This pricing reform, which has also been extended to the Egyptian government and its planned purchase of 40 F-16s, is not without cost, however. By reducing the cost to these two countries, Congress will likely increase the per unit cost to the US Air Force, potentially reducing the number of planes it can purchase in a given year. In addition, now that the precedent has been established, the provision is unlikely ever to be revoked; in fact, it is likely that pro-Israel congressmen will seek to broaden its application in the years to come—effectively increasing US aid to Israel without raising the official aid figure of $3 billion. Finally, as has been the case with numerous other "Israel-only" provisions, this benefit will probably be extended to other US aid recipients in the years ahead increasing the cost to the US taxpayer of Congress' unseemly obeisance to Israel and the pro-Israel lobby.

Kuwaiti Mavericks, Again

The Reagan administration's $1.9 billion arms sale to Kuwait, proposed and seemingly forgotten in July, returned to the forefront of congressional concern during intense, largely behind-the-scenes negotiations in late September. The sale, which included 40 F-18 jet fighters and an assortment of missiles, was pushed through in July after administration and House negotiators agreed to language altering the type of air-to-ground missiles included in the package.

Despite the apparent compromise, several pro-Israel senators, led by Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), balked. DeConcini, a second-term senator who is running for re-election this fall and who strongly opposes arms sales even to the most friendly Arab states, sponsored an amendment in July barring the sale of Maverick missiles to Kuwait. The measure was overwhelmingly approved—even though the issue had never been publicly debated—and then attached to the Senate's original foreign aid bill.

As with many issues bearing on Israel and US policy in the Middle East, reality seldom guides congressional actions.

Following this largely symbolic victory, it was widely expected that DeConcini would quietly permit his Senate colleagues to remove the prohibition during conference negotiations with the House in September. However, as with many issues bearing on Israel and US policy in the Middle East, reality seldom guides congressional actions: DeConcini, with strong backing from Republican Specter, refused to yield.

The two senators' opposition was overridden by an unlikely grouping of pro-Israel senators—including Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and Robert Kasten (RWI), the chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations Foreign Operations subcommittee. As two of Israel's most vocal congressional backers, Inouye and Kasten apparently agreed with Jewish critics of hard-line American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) tactics that defeat of this weapons sale to Kuwait, hard on the heels of the AIPAC engineered diversion of major Saudi weapons purchases (totaling an estimated $36 billion) from the US to Britain, could unleash a backlash against Israel's congressional supporters. After several attempts by Inouye, the provision was finally deleted from the foreign aid bill by an 8-7 vote of the 15 Senate conferees.

Iraqi Sanctions: Yes, No, Maybe

Imposing sanctions against Iraq for allegedly using chemical weapons against its Kurdish minority in the northern sector of the country was another issue the Senate considered during floor debate of its foreign aid bill. First passed by an overwhelming majority in early September, the issue was subsequently attached to the foreign aid bill after it became apparent that free-standing legislation would be vetoed by President Reagan. The measure, whose principal sponsors were Sens. Claiborne Pell (D-RI), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Jesse Helms (R-NC), would have prohibited the sale of military weaponry and other sensitive technology to Iraq, as well as imposing a range of economic sanctions against the Iraqi government.

Intense lobbying by the Reagan administration, concern about the sweeping nature of the Senate measure, and possibly dawning awareness of the lack of tangible evidence that Iraq has used poison gas anywhere after the cease-fire in its war with Iran, prompted the House to delete the provision when it took up the foreign aid bill in late September. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Peter Burleigh argued the administration's case in testimony before the House in September: "We cannot support this legislation because we do not believe sanctions now would bring us closer to the objective of ending chemical weapons use by Iraq." Passage of sanctions legislation would "undercut our efforts with Iraq and damage US exporters without furthering the goal of ending use" of chemical weapons.

Citing this opposition, House leaders, led by Rep. David Obey (D-WI) who chairs the House Appropriations' foreign operations subcommittee, killed the Senate sanctions provision on procedural grounds during floor consideration of the foreign aid legislation on September 30. Still, the measure's Senate sponsors were not satisfied.

On October 11, the Senate unanimously approved a compromise sanctions bill giving the president somewhat more freedom in imposing penalties against the Iraqi government. The new Senate version, approved by an 87-0 vote, was then attached to a pending technical corrections bill for the 1986 Tax Reform Act and sent to the House for consideration. Despite the Senate's persistence, the measure likely will never become law, largely because of concern by members in the House that the "tax" reform bill has become the repository for far too many unrelated issues, such as sanctions against Iraq.

Dennis J. Wamsted is a free-lance writer specializing in Middle East affairs and the US Congress.