War Crimes Risk Grows for U.S. Over Saudi Strikes in Yemen - The New York Times - 0 views
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the White House ceremony will also serve as tacit recognition of Mr. Trump’s embrace of arms sales as a cornerstone of his foreign policy.
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The president sweetened the Middle East deal with a secret commitment to sell advanced fighter jets and lethal drones to the Emirates
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stemming from U.S. support for Saudi Arabia and the Emirates as they have waged a disastrous war in Yemen, using American equipment in attacks that have killed thousands of civilians
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the United States has provided material support over five years for actions that have caused the continuous killing of civilians.
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prosecutors in a foreign court could charge American officials based on them knowing of the pattern of indiscriminate killing
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chief prosecutor could open an investigation into the actions of American forces in the Afghanistan war — the first time the court has authorized a case against the United States. The Trump administration this month imposed sanctions on that prosecutor and another of the court’s lawyers, a sign of how seriously the administration takes the possibility of prosecution.
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When an internal investigation this year revealed that the department had failed to address the legal risks of selling bombs to the Saudis and their partners, top agency officials found ways to hide this.
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it had put in place a strategy to lessen civilian casualties before the last major arms sale to the Saudi-led coalition, in May 2019.
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About $800 million in orders is now pending, held up in the same congressional review process that had frustrated Mr. Pompeo and the White House.
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“I have a very good relationship with them,” Mr. Trump said during an interview in February. “They buy billions and billions and billions of dollars of product from us. They buy tens of billions of dollars of military equipment.”
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That August, a coalition jet dropped an American-made bomb on a Yemeni school bus, killing 54 people, including 44 children, in an attack that Mr. Trump would later call “a horror show.”
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senior State Department political appointees were discussing a rarely invoked tactic to force through $8.1 billion in weapons sales without congressional approval: declaring an emergency over Iran.
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From that position, Mr. String tried to pressure Steve A. Linick, the inspector general, to drop his investigation, Mr. Linick, who was fired in May, said in congressional testimony in June. Mr. String’s office also handled the redacting of the report.
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$8.1 billion in weapons and equipment in 22 batches, including $3.8 billion in precision-guided bombs and bomb parts made by Raytheon Company, to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
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From July to early August this year, at least three airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in northern Yemen killed civilians, including a total of nearly two dozen children, according to the United Nations, aid workers and Houthi rebels.