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US Senate Halts Efforts to Prevent Arms Sales to Bahrain, Qatar

Michael Bowman

   CAPITOL HILL - The U.S. Senate on Thursday turned back resolutions
   aimed at disapproving multi-billion-dollar arms sales to Bahrain and
   Qatar, amid continued intensive congressional scrutiny of weapons sales
   to U.S. allies in the Middle East.
   The Senate voted 43-56 against moving the Bahrain resolution out of the
   Foreign Relations Committee and bringing it to the floor for
   consideration by the full chamber. It also voted 42-57 against
   discharging the resolution pertaining to Qatar.
   Sponsored by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the resolutions
   seek to block the Trump administration's decisions, announced in May,
   to sell U.S. missile systems to Bahrain and attack helicopters to
   Qatar, each valued in the $3 billion range.
   "The Middle East is a hot cauldron and continually threatening to boil
   over," Paul said ahead of the votes. "I think it's a mistake to funnel
   arms into these century-old conflicts."
   Paul noted that weapons sent to the Middle East can wind up in the
   hands of America's adversaries.
   "In Iran to this day, they still have some U.S. weapons that are left
   over from the weapons the U.S. supplied the shah [U.S.-backed former
   Iranian leader overthrown in 1979]. In Iraq, some of the weapons we
   gave them to fight Iran were still there when we returned to fight
   Saddam Hussein. In Afghanistan, some of the weapons we gave to the
   Mujahideen to fight the Russians [in the 1980s] were still there when
   we returned to fight the Taliban [after the 9-11 attacks of 2001],"
   Paul said.

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