Western arms makers eye lucrative Mideast market

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Western arms makers eye lucrative Mideast market
Western arms makers, squeezed by budget cuts at home, jostled to ink deals at the biggest arms fair in the Middle East as crackdowns on anti-regime protestors claimed hundreds of lives in the region.
Shiny fighter jets and armoured vehicles were showcased at the Sunday opening of the 10th International Defence Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi amid reports of a bloodbath in Libya, the latest country in the region gripped by a sweeping pro-democracy uprising and ensuing violence.
"The post-financial crisis reality is that today it is clearly the Middle East that is seeing the biggest growth," said Herve Guillou, president of Cassidian Systems, a subsidiary of European aviation defence group EADS

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