Saturday, September 27, 2014

UAE makes its first payment to the US for fighting ISIS.

Thanks for the link Jonathan.


via Washington Post.
The United States is close to a $2.5 billion deal with the United Arab Emirates that will send 4,569 mine-resistant vehicles to the Middle Eastern country as Washington wraps up its long war in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon announced the pending deal Friday. It calls for a foreign military sale of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, along with the necessary parts, equipment, training and logistical support.

“MRAPs,” as they are commonly known, are made by numerous manufacturers and have been commonly used in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect U.S. and coalition service members from improvised explosive devices buried in the roads. They were developed with a V-shaped armored hull to deflect bomb blasts.
The deal with the UAE, an Arab partner in airstrikes launched in Syria this week, calls for Washington to deliver mostly MaxxPro MRAPs made by Navistar Defense, a truck maker with headquarters in Lisle, Ill. Other principal contractors involved include BAE Systems of Sealy, Tex., and Oshkosh Defense in Oshkosh, Wis.
The vehicles would be refurbished and sold to the UAE as excess defense articles that were previously owned by the U.S. Army, officials said. Defense officials have said that they have been looking to sell excess MRAPs to partner nations for some time, but the scope of the deals were not clear.
OK.  This is pure speculation on my part and explains the title of this post.

THERE IS NOT FUCKING WAY THE UAE NEEDS 4,000 plus MRAPS! 

This is simply payment for services rendered.  They talked the US President into fighting a war for them and this is how they pay him back.  Refurbished MRAPS at the price for new ones and having US labor doing the work means an uptick in employment just in time to grease the numbers before the election.

Yeah, its cynical but nothing else makes sense.