As Turkey rapidly re-Islamizes and courts America’s enemies, this parallels Lenin’s old quip about how the capitalists would sell the Communists the rope that they would use to hang the capitalists. “Raytheon, Lockheed consider fresh bid for Turkey missile defense,” by Andrea Shalal-Esa for Reuters, November 12 (thanks to Maxwell):
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. arms makers Raytheon Co and Lockheed Martin Corp are considering ways to sweeten their offer to build a Patriot missile defense system for Turkey after Ankara said it could still back away from a provisional $3.4 billion deal with China, sources familiar with the issue said on Tuesday.
“There are internal discussions going on about improving the Patriot offer,” said one source, who is familiar with the talks but not authorized to speak publicly.
A second source confirmed that preliminary discussions were under way within industry and the U.S. government about how the offer could be adjusted to be more competitive with bids submitted by the Chinese firm, and a European group.
Both sources said no decisions had been made and it was important to allow Turkey – a member of NATO – time to make up its mind.
Turkey announced in September it had chosen China’s FD-2000 long-range air and missile defense system against rival offers from Franco/Italian Eurosam SAMP/T and Raytheon….
Executives at Raytheon and Lockheed say they remain prepared to work with Turkey on the issue, but have declined comments on any specific efforts to revise their offer.
“We welcome the opportunity to continue discussions with the Turkish government for their critical missile defense needs,” Lockheed spokesman Gordon Johndroe told Reuters in an email.