Wednesday August 1 3:57 PM ET

Official: Israel Wants to Base Fighter Jets in U.S.

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israel has asked the United States to permanently base some Israeli fighter jets at a U.S. Air Force base in America for combat training of Israeli pilots, officials of the two countries said on Wednesday.

They told Reuters that Washington was considering the request to station a contingent of Israeli jets at a U.S. base but that no decision had been made.

Such an agreement would be another sign of long and close military cooperation between the United States and its strongest Middle East ally. Israel has received billions of dollars in U.S. weapons, including warplanes, over the years.

Germany has a contingent of its fighter jets based at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico and rotates pilots there for training. Other U.S. allies, including Canada and Britain, periodically send warplanes to the United States for exercises and pilot training.

The Israeli request is for a permanent presence such as the Germans have had at Holloman in which pilots would be sent to join aircraft, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

``We have received a request and it is under consideration,'' Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in response to questions about the Israeli basing, which was first reported by Jane's Defense Weekly.

``There has been a request,'' said Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev.

``A VERY SMALL COUNTRY''

``Israel is a very small country geographically, as small as some of the smaller American states, and for training purposes it would be most useful to have an opportunity to do that together with the U.S. military in the United States,'' Regev told Reuters.

Asked when the request was made, the spokesman said ''recently.''

Regev said the Israeli Air Force (IAF) used to train in Sinai, which was returned to Egypt in the early 1980s, and that the time was now right for a change.

In a report from Tel Aviv, Jane's said the IAF wanted to send the aircraft to a U.S. Air Force base by 2002 as part of a program to improve training levels and raise combat readiness.

IAF officers told Jane's that Israel's size did not allow for realistic combat exercises and also limited the military's ability to train for long-range air strikes.

Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, commander-in-chief of the Israeli air force, said the aircraft would be based permanently in the United States and that pilots would be continually rotated for training
missions, according to the report.

Halutz said the proposed IAF deployment and training program would include combat maneuvers with the U.S. Air Force.

U.S. officials said the request was under review by the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. If that review was favorable, U.S. Air Force officials would begin looking for a suitable
location for the Israeli contingent.

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