The Senate endorsed the joint U.S.-Japanese deal to develop Japan's advanced FSX jet fighter, but said it wants some guarantees about the plane's production.
President Bush won a narrow victory Tuesday when the Senate rejected 52-47 an attempt to kill the deal. But by a veto-proof 72-27 margin, senators voted to add conditions to later negotiations on production of the plane.Japan refused to buy the U.S.-built F-16, on which the FSX will be based, but agreed to a U.S. request for joint development and production of the plane. The United States is to get 40 percent of the development work on the six initial fighters, and about 40 percent of the work if the plane goes into production.
The Reagan administration negotiated the FSX pact. Responding to congressional concerns, the Bush administration refined the agreement.
At the request of Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the Senate voted to require that the "memorandum of understanding" on the plane's production bans the transfer to Japan of sensitive engine technology and forbids the sale to third countries of the FSX or its major subcomponents.
Byrd's measure also asked, but did not demand, that the administration insist the United States gets no less than 40 percent - not approximately 40 percent - of the production work and the same minimum share of the spare parts and support equipment work.
Byrd's proposal was strenuously, but unsuccessfully, opposed by the Bush administration. Senate Republican leader Robert Dole of Kansas said it would "kill the FSX deal. . . . If this should become law, this deal is dead."
The Senate, on a voice vote, also approved nonbinding language asking the administration not to put the FSX deal into force until Japan removes all its corporate personnel from a suspected Libyan chemical weapons plant.