Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Poland Wants to Buy U.S. Stealth Missile If Affordable - Bloomberg

Poland Wants to Buy U.S. Stealth Missile If Affordable - Bloomberg: Poland wants to buy cruise missilesfrom the U.S. Air Force “without delay” if the price comesdown, according to a spokesman for the embassy in Washington.

Under a streamlined procedure for NATO allies,congressional committees this month approved a proposed packageof as many as 40 of the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missilesmade by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) and upgrades to Poland’s fleet ofF-16 fighter jets to carry them, together valued by the Pentagonat as much as $500 million.

While the proposed price “is at present too high,” formalapproval “has given us the opportunity to start detailednegotiations,” Rafal Perl, a spokesman for the Polish embassy,said an in e-mail.

“We hope that the negotiations will be productive and thatboth sides will very soon reach an agreement,” he said.

The approval culminated two years of discussions with theWhite House, Pentagon and Congress for Ryszard Schnepf, Poland’sAmbassador to the U.S., he said yesterday at a BloombergGovernment lunch.

“I had many conversations” with U.S. officials “beforeit happened,” Schnepf said of the effort, which predatedUkraine’s crisis with Russia.