"... The Defense Department has submitted a proposal for a $23 million assistance package to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), meant to give the army the capability to "accomplish missions in various tactical situations, especially in urban settings," according to a June 11 letter Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent to Congress. According to Inside the Pentagon's reporting, here's what sort of military hardware $23 million buys you these days:
The proposed deal includes $8 million for two-dozen 120 mm mortar systems and an equal number of M2 .50 caliber machines guns and laser rangefinders. DOD would also provide $8 million in ammo (4,000 mortar rounds and 1 million gun rounds), plus $7 million for two-dozen humvees and trailers. The items would be on contract or ordered from stock by Sept. 30, with deliveries starting as soon as possible and concluding within 18 months.
But will Congress sign off on this deal? Previous reports suggested that U.S. military assistance to Lebanon faced significant opposition -- and that senior Obama administration officials, including Gates himself, were also none to keen about further U.S. assistance to the LAF. During the past two years, Saad Hariri and his allies have mended ties with Syria and Hezbollah, raising the question of how, exactly, a strengthened LAF advanced U.S. national interests. What was the point of funneling millions of taxpayer dollars to the LAF, they asked, when it showed no inclination of confronting Hezbollah -- or, worse, U.S.-funded weapons could eventually find their way into the hands of Hezbollah and used against Israel?
CSIS fellow Aram Nerguizian, who wrote the book on this subject, argues that the LAF is the only cr0ss-sectarian institution with any legitimacy in the country -- and therefore the only force that can prevent Lebanon from coming apart at the seams. "If it were not for [U.S.] security assistance, given the budgetary constraints in Lebanon...and given the continued political discord, it would be very difficult for the LAF to maintain its current level of military operational tempo," he said.
Hariri was in Washington D.C. in late May to make a plea for further military assistance, .......However, it appears likely that the timing of this package had more to do with the U.S. embassy in Beirut's assessment of the LAF's needs, and the Pentagon's bureaucratic politics. The figures in the current deal did not come out of the blue: The State Department's 2011 Congressional budget justification for foreign operations requested a similar amount for "stabilization operations and security sector reform" in Lebanon."
However, that may miss the true story in Washington. "A lot of the nascent debate within Lebanon [about U.S. military assistance] is very politicized...and tends to be more a misreading of how the bureaucracy works," said Nerguizian. In the highly-charged political climate in Lebanon, news stories like this are inevitably read in relation to current events."
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