Perry, in Egypt, Vows U.S. Will Not Cut Aid

Defense Secretary William J. Perry told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday that the Clinton Administration would not cut its $2.1-billion aid package to Egypt and that he and other senior U.S. officials would defend the current level of support, despite the desire of new Republican leaders in Congress to trim foreign assistance.

But Perry offered no guarantees that aid would not be cut after 1996, and U.S. officials acknowledge privately that the current annual aid package for Egypt--of which $1.3 billion is military assistance--cannot be sustained over the long term.

Egypt and Israel receive a combined total of $5.6 billion in U.S. military and development assistance each year--a legacy of the 16-year-old Camp David peace accord between those two countries. It is by far the largest share of U.S. foreign aid.

But with deals struck last year between Israel and the Palestinians and between Israel and Jordan, Egypt fears aid will be slashed, since Washington has promised aid to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Jordan, and because Egypt’s importance as a strategic ally is diminishing as peace takes hold.

Also, members of the new Republican-controlled Congress have promised to sharply cut foreign aid.

“I told President Mubarak that President Clinton has put into his budget . . . the same level of aid for the next fiscal year that he has in the existing fiscal year,” Perry said Saturday after meeting with Mubarak in Cairo.

He urged Mubarak to meet with congressional leaders during a visit to Washington in the spring and said he thought the Administration would succeed in maintaining Egypt’s aid level.

Although Egypt does not publish figures on defense spending, a Pentagon official traveling with Perry said U.S. aid makes up roughly half the country’s military budget.

Egyptian anxiety over the future of U.S. aid has added to tensions between the United States and Egypt, which has begun to chart a more independent foreign policy after years of coziness with its principal financial benefactor.

At the same time, U.S. officials are eager to remain friendly with Egypt, both for its strategic value as a transit point for U.S. forces en route to the Persian Gulf region and for its continued, albeit diminished, role as an arbiter of Middle East peace.