Press Reports: The report’s examination of nearly $60bn in US weapons sales to the Saudi-led coalition – from a period spanning 2015 to 2021 – is the second time a watchdog has attempted to investigate the US’s own culpability in contributing to violation of humanitarian laws in the Yemen conflict. In August 2020, a state department inspector general found that the department was failing to take measures to reduce civilian deaths.
Yemen: State and DOD Need Better Information on Civilian Impacts of U.S. Military Support to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
According to the U.N., the conflict in Yemen is one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The U.S. has long-standing security relationships with Saudi Arabia and the UAE—2 primary actors in the conflict—and has sold them weapons. . .
What GAO Found
The Department of Defense (DOD) administered at least $54.6 billion of military support to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from fiscal years 2015 through 2021. The vast majority of this support was defense articles and defense services, . .Examples of Defense Articles That May Be Purchased through Foreign Military Sales: Helicopters, Missiles, and Small Diameter Bombs. . .
DOD submitted its report regarding U.S. and coalition partners' operations in Yemen on time and fully addressed all required elements that we reviewed, but State has not submitted all required certifications on Saudi Arabia's and UAE's actions in Yemen. . .
This is a public version of a sensitive report that GAO issued in April 2022. Information that DOD and State deemed sensitive has been omitted."
According to the U.N., the conflict in Yemen is one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The U.S. has long-standing security relationships with Saudi Arabia and the UAE—2 primary actors in the conflict—and has sold them weapons.
There have been reports of extensive civilian harm in Yemen. However, DOD has not reported and State could not provide evidence that it investigated incidents of potential unauthorized use of equipment transferred to Saudi Arabia or UAE.
State and DOD could use specific guidance for determining whether this equipment was used for unauthorized purposes. Our recommendations address this issue and more.
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105988
Saudi F-15C Eagles fly above Saudi Arabia in 2019. Attacks in Yemen by combat jets from a Saudi-led coalition are blamed for nearly 9,000 civilian deaths, according to a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. (Christopher Ruano/U.S. Air Force)
The troubling findings come days after the White House confirmed that Biden will visit Riyadh next month, in what is widely seen as an effort to persuade the kingdom to increase oil output and ease price pressure for consumers. . .
[. ] A foreign nation killing civilians while using U.S. weapons would not necessarily count as “misuse,” as the term is not defined in official policy, U.S. military and State Department officials told GAO investigators.
The government report validates fears that U.S.-made weapons are being used to commit war crimes in Yemen, the New York-based nonprofit group Human Rights Watch said Monday. It called for a suspension of sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
A 2020 State Department Inspector General report also found shortcomings in U.S. government transparency regarding the war in Yemen.
The release of this week’s report comes in advance of a planned Middle East trip in mid-July by President Joe Biden. The visit will include a stop in Saudi Arabia.
Human rights advocates who have supported Biden’s decision – so far – to try to personally alienate Saudi’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, have called the visit a “betrayal” of Biden campaign promise to turn Saudi into a pariah.
US has not fully investigated own role in Yemen rights abuses, watchdog finds
". . A report by the Government Accountability Office, which examined US weapons sales to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, also raised serious doubts about one of Joe Biden’s first foreign policy as president, when he announced that his administration was ending US support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen.
At the time, in February 2021, the move was seen as an attempt to show the world that the US would no longer be an unquestioning ally to its allies in the Gulf.
[ ] The UN has called the Saudi-led war in Yemen one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, affecting an estimated 21 million people.
The GAO reported that the US DoD had made some efforts to train Saudi officials to mitigate civilian casualties and adhere to international humanitarian law. But the DoD has never “fully measured” the extent to which its advising and training has helped to facilitate “civilian harm reduction” in Yemen.
The GAO also said that it had been told by the state department that officials there could not locate three so-called “country team” assessments to the UAE, which would have included critical information and how the US has evaluated weapons sales requests. The report said that, according to DoD policy, the assessments must also include the “potential for misuse of the defense articles in question” and what “additional training or support, if any, is necessary to reduce the risk that the recipient will inadvertently cause civilian harm during operations”.
GAO requested the assessments in September and were told this month that they have been located and would be provided to GAO once clearance was obtained."
US didn’t track whether weapons sold to Saudis caused civilian deaths in Yemen, GAO finds
The U.S. doesn’t know whether $54 billion in military arms sales to allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates contributed to the killing of civilians in Yemen, a government watchdog agency found.
State Departmentofficials “could not provide evidence that they conducted any investigations to determine if or how U.S.-origin equipment was misused, and could not provide specific guidance for doing so,” according to a Government Accountability Office report released Wednesday.
The report analyzed military aid the U.S. sent from the start of the civil war in Yemen in 2015 through 2021, the last year tracked. . .
U.S. Fails to Assess Civilian Deaths in Yemen War, Internal Report Says
A Saudi-led coalition has killed civilians with U.S. weapons, but the State Department and the Pentagon have fallen short on tracking the deaths, U.S. investigators found.
WASHINGTON — The State Department and the Defense Department have failed to assess civilian casualties caused by a Saudi-led coalition in the catastrophic war in Yemen and the use of American-made weapons in the killings, according to an internal government report.
The report from the Government Accountability Office focuses on attacks in recent years by a Saudi-led coalition that is fighting Houthi rebels for control of Yemen. The alliance, which includes the United Arab Emirates, has carried out deadly strikes using combat jets and munitions that have been supplied and maintained largely by American companies with the approval of the State Department and the Pentagon.
The report spans the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, covering the period from 2015, when the war against the Houthis began, to 2021. It is the second major report by a U.S. agency that lays out government shortcomings in preventing civilian casualties in Yemen. In August 2020, the State Department inspector general issued a report that said the department had failed to take proper measures to reduce civilian deaths. . ."
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