Cheney Seeks to Reassure Egypt on Bush Arms Plan

A day after consultations with top Israeli officials, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney on Saturday sought to reassure worried Egyptian leaders that the Bush Administration will pursue evenhandedly its efforts to ban nuclear weapons and limit conventional ones in the Middle East.

Cheney on Saturday opened three days of meetings with Egyptian defense officials and spent nearly three hours with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, steaming up the Suez Canal aboard the presidential yacht.

According to a knowledgeable U.S. official, the Egyptian leaders told Cheney that in spite of Israel’s objections to the nuclear-program limits in President Bush’s recent disarmament initiative, the United States must give equal billing to the control of “unconventional” and conventional weapons.

The term “unconventional weapons,” as used in the Mideast, refers primarily to nuclear weapons. Israel now is believed to have a regional monopoly on such arms.

The Egyptians’ reaction to the plan appears to reflect a widespread concern among Arab countries that the United States will use the President’s arms-control plan primarily to bolster Israel’s military position. Egyptian officials warned Cheney that Washington must not bow to Israeli objections and play down the banning of nuclear weapons, while pressing for limits on non-nuclear arms that the Arab countries want to buy.

“I don’t see that we are faced with an either-or proposition here,” said Cheney of the different views of Israelis and Arabs on Bush’s proposal. “Our work . . . is designed to try to persuade and promote the prospect that everybody in the region ought to be able to live in a more secure and more stable security environment.”

Earlier last week, Cheney struck agreements with Israel to transfer F-15 fighter jets, store additional military equipment in Israel and underwrite the bulk of a new missile-development program.

Saturday’s visit with Egyptian leaders, however brought no new arms agreements, officials said. That is in spite of the fact that Egypt is eager to buy U.S.-built Apache attack helicopters and other weaponry.

A senior defense official said the lack of new arms agreements with Cairo is “no measure of asymmetry in the relationship” but a function of the fact that “there is nothing that is ready to pop out of the chute” right now.