The United States maintains it disclosed the items beforehand and had received approval. Argentine cabinet chief Aníbal Fernández said an Argentine plane carrying similar cargo to the United States would have led to the imprisonment of its crew at the military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Aníbal Fernández: *”I want them to tell me what would have happened if an Argentinian plane with Argentinian military or armed men from the Argentinian security forces wanted to enter the U.S. with weapons, with machines to intercept communications, with numbered electronic equipment, with high-potential GPSes and all sorts of other things. They would certainly have ended up in Guantánamo, wearing orange overalls.”*
The spat comes on the heels of President Obama’s announcement of his first state visit to Latin America. Obama plans to stop in El Salvador, Chile and Brazil.
