U.S. Agrees to Let Egypt Build M-1 Battle Tank

The Reagan Administration has agreed in principle to an Egyptian request to co-produce the U.S. Army’s main battle tank, the M-1, and is working out final details before informing Congress, a State Department official said today.

The Egyptian defense minister, Abdel-Halim abu Ghazala, has been pushing for more than a year for permission to either build or assemble the M-1 Abrams tank, which entered U.S. service in 1980, according to State and Defense Department officials.

“But we want to get everything worked out before we go up to Capitol Hill and start answering questions,” said a Pentagon official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

The defense official said that “no final decision has been made.”

The State Department source, however, said a “decision in principle has been made, and the technical details are still being worked out. Once everything is worked out, Congress will be consulted.”

Details Unclear

It was not clear whether the Egyptians would assemble the M-1 from components made in the United States or build the components there, according to the Pentagon source.

The United States gives Egypt $1.3 billion in military aid and equipment annually and is selling the Arab nation advanced F-16 fighter and E-2C surveillance planes.

The Washington Post, in a dispatch from Egypt, quoted unidentified Administration officials as saying that “a decision has been made at the highest level to go ahead with production of the M-1 tank in Egypt” despite contentions that it could be built more easily in the United States.

Questions already have been raised about the plan, the newspaper said, particularly about the transfer of sensitive technology to Egypt, the cost of production, the lack of quality control, the potential threat to Israel that might result and the loss of jobs in the United States.

“The issue is going to be that it is just as easy to produce those tanks in Detroit or Lima, Ohio,” where M-1 production plants of General Dynamics Corp. are located, said a Western military expert the newspaper did not identify.