{"id":27665,"date":"2021-11-20T03:29:39","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T03:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=27665"},"modified":"2021-11-20T03:29:39","modified_gmt":"2021-11-20T03:29:39","slug":"us-senators-move-to-block-650-mln-arms-sale-to-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/us-senators-move-to-block-650-mln-arms-sale-to-saudi-arabia\/","title":{"rendered":"US Senators Move to Block $650 Mln Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A number of US senators are seeking to block the Biden administration\u2019s first major arms sales to Saudi Arabia, according to three senators.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A proposed $650 million in US arms sales to the kingdom is facing a joint resolution of disapproval introduced by Republicans Rand Paul and Mike Lee, as well as Bernie Sanders who caucuses with Democrats.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>In a statement, Paul said, &#8220;This sale that could accelerate an arms race in the Middle East and jeopardize the security of our military technologies.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;As the Saudi government continues to wage its devastating war in Yemen and repress its own people, we should not be rewarding them with more arms sales,&#8221; said Sanders in the joint statement.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The proposed package approved by the State Department would include 280 AIM-120C-7\/C-8 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles [AMRAAM], 596 LAU-128 Missile Rail Launchers [MRL]. Containers and support equipment, spare parts, US government and contractor engineering and technical support would also be included in the package.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Critics of the arms deal say Joe Biden has backtracked on his promise to reverse the policy decisions of his predecessor and end the US government\u2019s support to the Saudi-imposed war in Yemen.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>In November 2019, when asked about the regime in Riyadh, Biden had pledged to \u201cmake them pay the price and make them in fact the pariah that they are.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>This comes amid harsh criticism against Saudi Arabia for its military onslaught on Yemen. The kingdom, backed by the US and regional allies, launched a war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing Ansarullah movement.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen\u2019s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Yemeni armed forces and allied Popular Committees, however, have grown steadily in strength against the Saudi-led invaders, and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A number of US senators are seeking to block the Biden administration\u2019s first major arms sales to Saudi Arabia, according to three senators. A proposed $650 million in US arms sales to the kingdom is facing a joint resolution of disapproval introduced by Republicans Rand Paul and Mike Lee, as well as Bernie Sanders who &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news-and-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27667,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27665\/revisions\/27667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}