“I want to tell you, we had wanted to buy Russian MiGs (fighter planes). You know Russians, they are very inferior. Somehow or other, it was wangled without my knowledge, that part of the money (only to be used to purchase MiGs was also used) to buy (the American made) F-18 (planes). The very good American aircraft costs twice as much as the MiGs. And then, we acquired eight F-18s and 18 MiGs. MiGs are sold to us without any condition. If we feel like bombing Singapore, for example, the Russians are not going to object. Any Singaporeans here? Or ex-Singaporeans?
But this great aircraft called F-18 which we bought from America, after buying it, after several months, I got to know that these aircraft cannot be used for any attacks against any country even if it is not Singapore, because the Americans sold the aircraft, but the source code is kept by them. So you cannot plan anything, you cannot fly them to carry out any bombing attacks against anybody but you have this wonderful aircraft which you can see at Lima (the Langkawi International Maritime and Aviation Exhibition). So, we spent this huge sum of money and they actually negotiated and agreed to these terms.
So that’s why I say we are not very good at negotiating.”