REAGAN'S PLAN TO GIVE SMALL MISSILES TO REBELS SPARKS SECURITY CONCERNS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302550004-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: April 2, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302550004-6
,iN PAGZ CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
2 April 1986
Reagan's plan to give
small missiles to rebels
sparks security concerns
Ily Paler Gist
Star miler of The Christian Science Morita
Washington
Last week, Sen. Dennis DeConcini started getting
phone calls from top Reagan administration officials.
They wanted to talk about Stinger antiaircraft missiles.
The Stinger is a lethal weapon, and the Arizona
Democrat did not think the "contras" fighting the
Sandinista government in Nicaragua should be allowed
to have it. He had prepared an amendment to the
contra-aid bill that would have prevented such a
transfer.
But after a call from the President, among others, the
amendment was quietly dropped.
As this incident shows, the shoulder-fired Stinger is
now a weapon of controversy in Washington. Sending
Stingers to insurgents symbolizes a level of United
States support that makes some officials nervous ?
and that others applaud.
The administration has now decided to send Stingers
to antisovernment forces in Angola and Afghanistan,
according to widespread reports. This move has long
been urged by factions within the Central Intellig_ericp_
Agency and Congress, which feel the ca-
pable Stingers are the only way to coun-
terbalance Soviet-supplied helicopter
gimshins.
Stingers look like World War II-era
bazookas that have grown up. Fired by
one soldier, they can travel up to 3 miles
cross-country and hit targets 4,500 feet
off the ground. Their sensitive heat-seek-
ing "eyes" can even spot aircraft from the
front, when hot tailpipes are out of sight.
This is a top-of-the-line US weapon,
and until now it has been available only to
the trusted few. Besides NATO allies and
other developed pro-US nations such as
Japan, Stingers have been sold only to
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, according to
State Department officials.
There are "substantive questions of
security" involved in sending Stingers to
other countries that might want them, a
State Department official says.
"We would not export stuff like that to
El Salvador, for instance," says this offi-
cial. The Salvadorean military is not ex-
actly famous for tight discipline, and if
Stingers fell into the hands of anti-
government rebels, "they might shoot
down President Duarte's helicopter."
Saudi Arabia, before it got its first
batch of Stingers, had to agree to security
procedures detailed by the US. According
to documents outlining the agreement, the
Saudis must store the Stingir's two main
parts ? launcher and missile ? in two
separate areas.
Each area must have a full-time guard
force and be surrounded by a fence a
minimum of 6 feet high. Storage buildings
must have steel vault doors, each secured
by two padlocks. US personnel will in-
spect security arrangements annually, ac-
cording to the documents. All mainte-
nance of Stinger internal systems must be
done under US control.
If Reagan officials have really decided
to send Stingers to the mujahideen in
Afghanistan, and Jonas Savimbi's anti-
communist rebels in Angola, then they
must have changed their minds about the
missile's sensitivity, congressional critics
say. "Do we seriously think there are
safeguards like the Saudis have in the
mountains of Afghanistan?" asks one
Senate aide.
A large percentage of arms sent to the
Afghan rebels end up on the black market
in Peshawar, Pakistan. The rebels them-
selves sometimes provide the wares to
raise hard cash, according to the aide.
Purloined Stingers would be "the ulti-
mate terrorist weapons," another con-
gressional aide says.
Easy to use, easy to hide, the missiles
would enable terrorist groups to supple-
ment airport terminal attacks with
strikes at civilian planes in the air, this
aide says.
In addition, he claims, their presence in
rebel hands would strip away the last
vestiges of secrecy about US aid in Angola
and Afghanistan.
Other experts say the terrorist poten-
tial of Stingers is somewhat exaggerated.
The Soviets' most advanced similar
weapon, the SA-7B, is widely available in
third-world nations, they point out.
When the Israelis occupied PLO head-
quarters in Beirut, they discovered "thou-
sands" of SA-7Bs still in crates, says Rob-
ert Kupperman, a terrorism expert at
Georgetown University's Center for Stra-
tegic and International Studies.
Though it can only spot a plane when it
can see its hot exhaust, and though its
batteries tend to go dead, the SA-7B could
shoot down a civilian airliner, Mr.
Kupperman says. It probably couldn't
shoot down a jet fighter, as Stingers could
? "but terrorists aren't too interested in
F-15s," he says.
The Stinger issue may yet be explicitly
debated in Congress. Reo. Lee H. Hamil-
ton (D) of Indiana, chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, has called for
(men congressional discussion of aid to
Angola and Afghanistan.
continued
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302550004-6
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302550004-6
. .
'
? ? ?
,
? ? ' "
, *1. Egtx:6V,IMA:40..,4
?ciaikirste. .
? via% ,44.. ?
...EVAN:. ?
sag**. A/though ihe
itilies per
elm. The Silicte
twilp sett ad mon*
or mountain staees,
15 seconds to see e hat,
limitation. Against
be much more effective. iliallialietitylieftelie
spinet such heet-seeiciag *Mt Omit,
which the target aircraft tiropetedimet the melees.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302550004-6