US Foreign Arms Sales Hit Record in '09

[tekisui]

Source: Defence Web

US government-to-government arms sales rose 4.7% to a record $38.1 billion last year and are projected to total almost as much in 2010, a Pentagon agency said.
The bumper 2009 sales reflected 465% growth from an arms sales "low point" in fiscal 1998, according to Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, head of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

Many, if not most, of the pacts signed in fiscal 2009 that ended September 30, are part of a boom in US conventional weapons sales that started under former President George W. Bush.

The 2009 sales were up from $36.4 billion in sales agreements in 2008 and $23.3 billion in 2007, said the agency, which administers the Pentagon's Foreign Military Sales program, a key part of US alliance-building and maintenance.

(snip)

The top purchasing countries in 2009 were United Arab Emirates ($7.9 billion), Afghanistan ($5.4 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($3.3 billion), followed by Taiwan ($3.2 billion), Egypt ($2.1 billion), Iraq ($1.6 billion), NATO ($924.5 million), Australia ($818.7 million) and South Korea ($716.6 million), Murray said.

more: http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5138&Itemid=366

[Selatius]

1. Nice to see the US is making a killing being the world's largest arms dealer.

They talk peace, yet here they are selling weapons to dictators and regimes that slaughter people who oppose them.