Unnamed WH correspondent:

Q Okay. I have a question on another subject. I’ve read that the reason for the multi-multi-billion dollar taxpayer-paid arms package for the Middle East is because they are under threat from Iran. Is that —
MR. SNOW: Once again you’ve mischaracterized what’s going on here, which is in a case of — you’ve got an aid package to Israel and Egypt. Those, of course, have been in place for many years.
Q And others.
MR. SNOW: No, the others are going to be arm sales. These are not going to be aid packages, these are not going to be grants. These are going to be arm sales. So these individual countries will have an opportunity to buy with their own taxpayers’ money.
Q Well, are we trying to help the poverty stricken — welfare to the military industrial complex and —
MR. SNOW: No, what we’re trying to do is to protect people in the region from killers.
Q — getting so poor.

And a statement from Iran’s defense Minister, as reported by the Islamic Republic News Agency:

Iranian defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said the United States was trying to “create a fake arms race in order to make their big arms companies survive”, the official IRNA news agency reported.