President Eisenhower warned our nation during his farewell address to be very wary of the military industrial complex and its encroachment on civil society. The moment when the best interests of defense contractors start determining what is in the national security interest of our country, the tail has begun to wag the dog. This is the concern of Rand Paul, regarding the recent arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
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The $110 billion arms deal to Saudi Arabia is fake news
Last month, President Trump visited Saudi Arabia and his administration announced that he had concluded a $110 billion arms deal with the kingdom. The only problem is that there is no deal. It's fake news. I’ve spoken to contacts in the defense business and on the Hill, and all of them say the same thing: There is no $110 billion deal. Instead, there are a bunch of letters of interest or intent, but not contracts. Many are offers that the defense industry thinks the Saudis will be interested in someday. So far nothing has been notified to the Senate for review. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the arms sales wing of the Pentagon, calls them “intended sales.” None of the deals identified so far are new, all began in the Obama administration.
Trump appointees promoted nuclear sales to Saudi Arabia despite warnings, report says
ey members of the Trump administration pushed a plan to sell nuclear
power plants to Saudi Arabia in the months after the inauguration
despite objections from members of the National Security Council and
other senior White House officials, according to a new report from
congressional Democrats.
Trump Allows High-Tech U.S. Bomb Parts to Be Built in Saudi Arabia
When the Trump administration declared
an emergency last month and fast-tracked the sale of more American arms
to Saudi Arabia, it did more than anger members of Congress who opposed
the sale on humanitarian grounds. It
also raised concerns that the Saudis could gain access to technology
that would let them produce their own versions of American
precision-guided bombs — weapons they have used in strikes on civilians
since they began fighting a war in Yemen four years ago.
Donald Trump vetoes bills prohibiting arms sales to Saudi Arabia
Donald Trump has vetoed a trio of congressional resolutions aimed at
blocking his administration from selling billions of dollars of weapons
to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, last month cited threats from
Iran as a reason to approve the $8.1bn arms sale to the two US allies in
the Gulf.