Obama Administration ‘Hides’ Massive Saudi Arms Deal
November 22, 2010 1 Comment
ABC
The Obama administration has quietly forged ahead with its proposal to sell $60 billion worth of fighter jets and attack helicopters to Saudi Arabia unhampered by Congress, despite questions raised in legislative inquiries and in an internal congressional report about the wisdom of the deal.
The massive arms deal would be the single largest sale of weapons to a foreign nation in the history of the U.S., outfitting Saudi Arabia with a fully modernized, potent new air force.
“Our six-decade-long security relationship with Saudi Arabia is a primary security pillar in the region,” Defense Sec. Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote in a Nov. 16 letter to congress. “This package continues that tradition.”
But some critics are questioning the deal, and the stealthy effort by the Obama administration to avoid a more probing congressional review by notifying Congress last month, just as members were headed home for the November elections. Congress had 30 days to raise objections — a review period that concludes Saturday. With most members leaving Washington today, any significant effort to block the deal appears dead for now, officials said.
“I do not think there will be any action” to hold up the sale, Rep. Howard Berman, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Bloomberg News Thursday.
Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat, submitted a resolution this week to try and block the deal, and was among those who objected to the way the administration approached the required congressional review.
“Hiding this in a recess announcement is a sign of how unpopular it is,” he said. “It’s bad policy that now is further tainted by shameful process.”
Clinton: Saudis Helped Thwart Cargo Bomb Plot
The Obama administration has touted the deal as a boon for American jobs, and as a move to solidify the alliance between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia at a time when American intelligence is dependent on the Islamic nation for help in the war on terror. Earlier this month, it was a tip from Saudi intelligence that helped foil an al Qaeda plot to hide a bomb in a desktop printer aboard a UPS cargo plane.
The arrangement would ship 84 F-15 fighter jets and more than 175 attack helicopters to the Saudis over the next 15 years. The choppers, in particular, would “bolster Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism capabilities,” Gates and Clinton wrote in their letter this week to congressional leaders.
Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, a Republican who will soon retire as his party’s ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, supports the arms sale, and told ABC News that the Saudis offered ample evidence of the value of the alliance when they provided tracking numbers for the parcels that contained the concealed bombs.
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So they warned us against a hidden bomb, and they got paid royally for it. How stupid are we? I guess this is going to be another Serbia only this time it is our turn to be wiped out, a clinton helped do that before and a Clinton is doing it again. Now we know why all of these Muslims were brought in here, the same way the Albanianns were brought into serbia, to wipe out the Serbs. The UN helped on that one, I’m sure they will help them on this one too. Its unfortunate that the Congess and Senate even have a lame duck session, thats quite a vacation, we didn’t vote them in so they could take off for 3 months knowing what would be done to us if they did, every communistic bill that can be passed will be passed and now I wonder who is in on this , is it everyone? It seems that way to me. Are we going to be bombed in the middle of the night, men women and children while we sleep? the way we did to serbia? My Senator Dick Durbin thought it was great that the UN kept them safe while they bombed people, so far thats the only help we have ever gotten from them and it was wrong. Good batting average . I’m sick to my stomach thinking of this, Hillary giving her daughter a 3 million dollar wedding only a few miles form my Moms house and hating America all the while, what is her complaint? her parents live over in the next town and they are not poor, she was never poor and now she is wealthy, her husband is a communist and she is a communist, she deserves to be removed from this country so she can live in a place more to her liking, China would be perfect. If thee was ever a time to stand up and do something to save our country and ourselves, this is it, I owuldn’t trust anyone in our Government again. none of them.