An important voice in the US Congress against the Saudi war in Yemen called on the United Kingdom to follow in the footsteps of the Biden government and end offensive arms sales to the kingdom, saying Britain should have no greater interest in “perpetuating crimes. war “than the US does.
Senator Chris Murphy, an influential Democrat on the foreign affairs committee, told the Guardian that he believed the Biden government was ready to continue using arms sales as a lever in its relationship with the Saudi government, in addition to a ban on arms sales. offensives for use in Yemen has already been announced.
“I think there is still a lot more to come when it comes to how the United States will use arms sales to try to encourage good decision making in Riyadh,” said Murphy.
Even while expressing optimism that the United States would continue to try to dispute concessions with Saudi Arabia, Murphy made a moral case for Britain to do the same, despite the reluctance that the Boris Johnson government expressed in adhering to the ban on offensive weapons. from the Biden government.
“I think it would be very important for the British to adopt the same policies as the United States. I don’t know why Britain is more interested than us in what weapons are used to perpetuate war crimes ”.
Murphy also minimized the economic cost that the Boris Johnson government – one of the world’s largest arms sellers to Saudi Arabia – would pay if it reduced.
“The dollars linked to these arms sales are minuscule compared to the moral cost of what they are being used to do. I have a huge footprint in defense manufacturing in Connecticut, but I will never, ever, advocate an arms sale that ends in civilian deaths just because it generates money for my state. And I trust that the British government sees it in the same way. “
The senator also asked the Biden government to be “very vigilant” that the weapons he agreed to sell were “purely defensive” in nature, because the Saudis would certainly adopt a “very broad definition” of what weapons they believed to be defensive.
Biden’s effort to end the war in Yemen and end offensive support for the Saudis was complicated by a wave of recent attacks on the Saudi oil industry, which the White House on Monday called “genuine security threats”.
While Murphy emerged as one of the toughest voices against the Saudi government, the senator did not add his voice to critics in Congress who called for sanctions against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the release of the US intelligence report that found the royal accomplice in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
“I don’t believe that our policy will be static from today until the day Biden leaves office. I think there is an element of being aware of this whole problem, ”he said.
Murphy added: “I am probably the strongest proponent in Washington for the United States to completely review its relationship with Saudi Arabia. I think they are a deeply flawed and unstable ally. I think their oil matters to us much less than it did 40 years ago, which is why I believe that we should stop taking sides in the proxy wars between the Gulf States and Iran. ”
The focus on US arms policy comes at a time when Washington is reexamining its role in the deadly conflict in Yemen.
The Government Accountability Office, the research arm of Congress, is due to complete a report by the end of this year that will examine, among other things, the process the Pentagon has used to determine whether the United States has contributed to “gross violations of recognized international human rights law. by countries that are members of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, ”including allegations of torture.
The report, which was stipulated in the latest US defense bill, but has so far received little attention, will also examine whether the US has provided training to any coalition force that may have restricted humanitarian aid shipments or the movement of people to outside Yemen.
Experts said the release of the report could help shape the government’s future response to the conflict, in part by providing more evidence about the role the United States played in the humanitarian crisis.