The Pentagon announced, on Wednesday, the approval of the US Defense Secretary, Beit Higsheth, on a Boeing 747, provided by Qatar, which will be used by President Donald Trump, as soon as the Ministry of Defense updates it with “appropriate security” measures.
“The Minister of Defense agreed to the Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations, and the Ministry of Defense will work to ensure that appropriate security measures and operating tasks requirements are taken into account of the plane that will be used to transport the President of the United States,” Sean Barnell, the main spokesman for the Pentagon, said in a statement.
The New York Times quoted a Pentagon spokesman as saying that “the United States accepted a 747 -gift plane from Qatar, and asked the Air Force to find a way to quickly develop it to use a new presidential plane (Air Force One),” the New York Times quoted a Pentagon spokesman as saying.
When Trump was asked, on Wednesday, about reports that the Pentagon had accepted the plane, he told reporters that “Qatar gives the US Air Force a plane, well, and this is great.”
“This story of the plane is a deal between the Qatari Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense, which was completely and completely legal, and it is part of the cooperation we have been doing together for decades,” Qatar Prime Minister told Bloomberg on Monday.
On Tuesday, Air Force Minister Troy Mink and Air Force Chief David Olivin said to the legislators that Higsteh commanded the Air Force to start planning to amend the plane.
“The Air Force Minister ordered the start of planning to modify the plane, and we are ready to do so,” Menck said.
A spokesman for the Air Force told “CNN” that “the Air Force, at the direction of the Minister of Defense, is preparing to grant a contract to amend the Boeing 747 to transport the dignitaries. Details of this contract are classified.”
CNN officials stated that the amendment and equipping of a plane used from another government, even if it is a friend of the required security and communications systems, is a huge task, which may take two years and may cost twice the value of the plane itself, and the American spy and security agencies in charge of modernizing the plane will need to be fully stripped even of its basic structure, and then rebuilding it with the necessary equipment.
