The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress (link opens in PDF) on Thursday of plans to sell the government of Iraq as much as $1.95 billion in assorted military equipment, including:
- 12 Bell 412 EP transport helicopters and associated equipment, valued at $300 million;
- 50 M1135 Stryker Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicles, outfitted for survivability in a chemical warfare environment, and valued at approximately $900 million; and finally
- spare parts needed for the maintenance of M88A1 and M88A2 Hercules Recovery Vehicles (both used to salvage damaged tanks, M1070 Heavy Equipment Trailers and Trucks (HETT), M977 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks (HEMTT), High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (Humvees), Tactical Floating River Bridge Systems (TFRBS), M113 Family of Vehicles (armored personnel carriers), M109A5 Howitzers, and M198 Howitzers. This portion of the proposed arms sale is said to be worth approximately $750 million.
All three proposed sales are described as contributing to "the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic partner." And according to DSCA, "there will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readiness as a result of" any of these proposed sales.
Principal contractors, should the sales be approved, include Textron (TXT 0.40%) for the helicopter sale and General Dynamics (GD 0.28%) for the Strykers. No single principal contractor has been identified as associated with the spare parts sale, but both the HETTs and the HEMTTs, for example, are manufactured by Oshkosh (OSK -0.80%), while Britain's BAE Systems (BAES.Y -2.50%) builds the recovery vehicles, howitzers, and M113s.
