THOMAS HEDGES: Two weeks ago, the the United States approved a $1.3 billion arms
sale to Saudi Arabia. But the deal is minuscule compared to existing contracts between the
two countries: over $100 billion in arms deals that have cleared Congress in the last five
years or so.
WILLIAM HARTUNG: There's this huge amount of weaponry in the pipeline which is going
to go on for years and years, barring some sort of action from Congress to roll back
on these things.
HEDGES: William Hartung, a leading policy expert on arms and security, says that the
weapons we give Saudi Arabia are all encompassing.
WILLIAM HARTUNG: And it's things like giving them a whole new airfare, training their national
guard, giving them new combat vehicles. Now they're talking about a big missile defense
system. So other than restocking the Saudi navy, the U.S. has almost remade the Saudi
armed forces in these last number of years. The sales that have gone through--they're
not using them in ways that contribute to stability or security in that part of the
world.
since World War II, about $30 billion more in contracts in the first six years of Obama
than in the totality of the Bush administration.
HARTUNG: When Obama ran for office, when he first came in, he wanted to be perceived as
the president who ends wars. He wasn't going to send tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands
of troops to Iraq. He was going to get out of Afghanistan. But what happened was he just
decided to use force in a different way. So he went for drone strikes. He went for arms
sales and training. The U.S. has provided training to 163 countries in 2014. So there's
hardly anywhere in the world that's not getting some kind of military help from the United
States--either weapons or training. And so the idea is if the United States doesn't send
troops, they'll arm allies to carry out some of the same functions. Unfortunately, a lot
of times awry as in the case of the Saudis, where allegedly this equipment was to help
them fight ISIS, and now they're using it to prosecute this horrible war in Yemen.
HEDGES: Now that the United States is fighting less, weapons manufacturing companies are
is another growth area for us. A lot of volatility, a lot of instability, a lot of things that
are happening both with North Korea as well as some of the tensions between China and
Japan. So in both of those regions which are growth areas for us, we expect that there's
going to continue to be opportunities for us to bring our capabilities to them.
HARTUNG: All the big contractors--Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics--have
made it a goal to increase their exports in the next few years. The Pentagon budget sort
of leveled off, at least in terms of spending on major weapons in the last few years, so
they're looking for foreign sales for growth, sometimes raising their sales 25 percent or
more [...] So bad news for the world, in a sense, is good news for the bottom line of
companies like Lockheed Martin.
HEDGES: That means Saudi Arabia's use of force, whether through repressing its own population,
attacking Yemen, or funneling arms to militants in Iraq and Syria, is a boon for weapons contractors,
and not just in the United States. Last year Canada signed a $15 billion contract, its
largest in history, with Saudi Arabia for the Canadian-based company GD Land Systems
to build an undisclosed amount of Light Armored Vehicles, the same types already used in Bahrain
on civilians in its 2011 crackdown on protesters and public dissent. The United Kingdom and
its largest contractor BAE Systems also want to expand its £4 billion, or $6 billion "priority
market" with Saudi Arabia, centered around BAE's Eurofighter Typhoon jet. And France
signed a $12 billion deal over the summer that includes a fleet of patrol boats made
by the french company DCNS.
The immensity of these contracts means that governments in these countries won't criticize
Saudi behavior. Here in the United States especially, politicians are silent on the
use of arms in Saudi human rights violations, for example, because speaking out means losing
hefty campaign contributions from the defense industry.
HARTUNG: The contractors give $20 million or so per election cycle and a lot of it goes
to the members of the Armed Services Committee or members with military plants in their districts.
So people like Mac Thornberry who runs Armed Services in the House got a big boost in his
contractor contributions when he took over the chair there. The former chair Buck McKeon
was the biggest recipient of the entire industry. So they hone in on people that they think
can help them. And as a result you'll see members from places like Michigan and Ohio
wanting to push tank sales to Saudi Arabia to keep factories open or Boeing in St. Louis
getting the Missouri delegation behind a sale to Kuwait that will keep their F-18 combat
aircraft program going. So there's this kind of economic dependency that's developed over
the years so that certain communities in certain states--if the Pentagon's not keeping those
production lines open--they have this urgent economic push to press for exports.
HEDGES: And because the Saudis purchase their weapons directly from the United States, and
aren't aid recipients like Egypt and Israel, congress can't politicize these arms deals
even as a taxpayer issue.
HARTUNG: At least there's a nexus in Congress when the aid package goes through [...] When
it's a sale--Saudi Arabia just pays money for these things, they don't get any aid--Congress
pays less attention. There's no taxpayer dollars involved. It's good for American weapons manufacturers.
So, unfortunately, it's a rare occasion when one of these Saudi deals gets scrutiny from
Congress of any sort [...] If it were aid to Saudis, if there were billions of dollars
going to support this of taxpayer money, I think it might get more attention from the
public, from the press, and from Congress than we're getting now.
HEDGES: Hartung hopes to see a coalition of senators and representatives come together
to challenge the role Saudi Arabia plays not only in the Middle East but also in American
politics and our dependency on them through our military industrial complex.
HARTUNG: What's missing here is some sort of leadership in Congress. It wouldn't take
a lot of members. If a few senators, a few members of the House followed through: what
are the Saudis doing with these weapons? What does it mean for people in that part of the
world? What does it mean for the United States reputation for human rights? I think they
could make some noise and maybe slow up some of these sales and reduce the impact on civilians
in the area.