Addressing Turkey’s outstanding Reaper UAV requests, SecDef reaffirmed to Basbug that the U.S. is committed to the sale of Reapers to Turkey, but offered the caveat that the sale would first have to be approved by Congress.
••• This February 2010 US State Department cable, referencing the Turkish government’s request for American-made drones, is one of a relative few in the latest Wikileaks release that pertain to state-to-state weapons sales.
[T]he [government of Russia] believed transferring the [S-300 long-range missiles] to Iran would increase stability in the region because Iran would feel more secure without developing nuclear weapons.
••• Another cable reveals that Russia’s logic for arming Iran is similar to America’s logic for arming Saudi Arabia.
[Israeli Defense Ministry] Political-Military Chief Amos Gilad…explained that Moscow has raised the provision of sophisticated Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology in exchange for canceling the S-300 [missile] sale to Tehran. Gilad said [Russia]…is prepared to pay USD one billion for Israeli UAV technology. He reiterated that Israel will not provide its latest UAV technology, arguing that such technology would likely end up in the hands of the Chinese.
••• Drones are the new must-have weapon for any global power, apparently. Here, an Israeli military official is trying to put American diplomats at ease about a possible $1 billion sale of drone technology to Russia.
[An] Iranian Embassy diplomatic container with AK-47’s, sniper rifles and ammunition hidden in it had been discovered… The weapons were reportedly hidden underneath two Turkmen carpets that the Iranian Embassy was shipping to Iran.
••• Another cable offers detail on Iran’s weapons smuggling efforts. Noah Shachtman at Wired has more on “Iran’s worldwide arms hunt.”
Afghanistan’s Vice President, Ahmed Zia Massoud was discovered to be carrying $52 million in cash in the United Arab Emirates last year. He was allowed to keep the money. Nobody asked him where it came from, which is probably a good thing.
••• If one major scandal emerges from this Wikipressrelease, it probably deserves to be this embarrassing incident at airport security: One way or another, that was almost certainly $52 million of US taxpayer money. (Gawker’s Adrian Chen sifts this and other good gossip from the trickle of unverified information contained in Wikileaks’ pilfered US State Department cables. Read more worthwhile reactions on the release from a Guardian columnist, a Wikipedia co-founderand a US military blogger.)