Chavez aide: US killed EADS CASA deal

A military advisor to Hugo Chavez says the United States killed the deal in which the European defense conglomerate EADS CASA was to have provided the Chavez regime with military patrol and transport aircraft.

Gen. Alberto Muller tells AP that the deal "was canceled because the United States canceled it." Muller said the cost of replacing the American-made parts to circumvent US law made the costs prohibitively high.

EADS CASA is relying on the United States to contract it to build the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA), using the same planes the company had hoped to sell to Chavez. The multibillion-dollar JCA contract would effectively subsidize the losses that EADS CASA would have incurred in circumventing US nonproliferation law and breaking the US military embargo on Caracas.