French defense giant EADS has won a contract to help secure The Kingdom’s border with Iraq:
Defence and aerospace group EADS has won a contract worth an estimated $2.27bn (£1.4bn) to help Saudi Arabia improve its border security.
The five-year deal will expand on the pan-European firm’s existing contract with the Saudis to improve security along its border with Iraq.
The new deal covers all of Saudi Arabia’s other land and sea boundaries.
EADS will provide everything from new radar stations to camera systems and reconnaissance aircraft.
I wonder: Is this designed to keep Iraqi refugees out should the situatin in urban centers deteriorate after the US pull-back, or disaffected Saudi’s looking for the right moment to join the jihad in?
How about we hire them to seal our southern border? Or better yet, let’s up the ante in their deal with the Saudi’s and have them build a fence to keep all the Saudi’s inside? Better for us.
How about keeping the Saudis in once Iraq becomes a better place to live.
Its for when Iraq renounces any pretense of caring about the Sunni minority. And becomes a Shite country.
Skippy, you’re probably closest so far. We’ve been asking the KSA for years to get a grip on that border, but so long as we were there the most the KSA would do is ask us for money to subsidize any proposed border controls. Talk about chutzpah! Now that we’re leaving they suddenly find the cash.
Don’t forget the southern “border,” though, where every week a division’s worth of ordnance is smuggled across the sands. Too much of it has been used to target the royal family already, so yes, good fences and all that.
This was actually awarded a year ago, and they have been negotiating the T&Cs since. There have been similar contracts for the last twenty years — US version, under FMS, has been called “Peace Shield”.