Motion to Discharge--S.J. Res. 77

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am on the floor today to speak to resolutions upon which we will begin voting today regarding arms sales proposed by the administration to the United Arab Emirates.

I am on the floor today to ask my colleagues to support these resolutions of disapproval upon two grounds: one, the protection of congressional prerogative and, two, a question of U.S. national security.

First, let me cover the question of congressional prerogative. We have traditionally debated arms sales here on occasion, and the reason why we don't have constant debates in this body on arms sales, the reason why we don't have resolutions on every sale that is noticed by the administration, is because we have built into our practice an ability for the Senate to consult with the administration beforehand on a bipartisan basis.

Over the years, since the passage of the law allowing for Congress to have a role in the sale of arms to foreign nations, administration after administration, Republican and Democrat, has observed a period of consultation with Congress in which the administration comes to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, comes to the House Foreign Relations Committee, presents the reasons for the sale, and then addresses concerns raised, often in a bipartisan manner, by Republicans and Democrats.

Again, this has happened in both Democratic and Republican administrations, with Democratic and Republican Congresses, and often that consultative process results in issues that Congress has being resolved so that you never have to have a vote on the Senate floor.

Something different happened with this sale. The administration was so desperate to rush through the sale before the end of their administration that they blew through the consultation process. It just didn't happen. There was no ability for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to weigh in on this particular sale. It was rushed to notice, and our only option was to bring it before the full Senate.

Now, under any circumstances, I would argue that the Senate should stand up for our right to have a role. The reason that we built in this consultative process was because the Senate was actually unhappy with the amount of input it had decades ago and was threatening to dramatically expand its oversight role on arms sales. Instead, a deal was worked out in which the administration said they would come for this consultation.

Now it appears that those consultations are no longer the practice. That reduces our role as a foreign-policy-making body. And remember, we have abdicated all sorts of responsibilities over the years when it comes to what should be a coequal responsibility to set the broad direction of U.S. foreign policy with the executive branch. This would be yet another chip away at Congress's participation in the setting of U.S. national security policy. I am not sure we will ever get it back.

But on this sale, in particular, the consultative process was really important because this sale is as big and as hairy and as complicated as you get. We are, for the first time, selling F-35s and MQ-9 Reaper drones into the heart of the Middle East. We have never done it before. There are only 14 countries that currently operate the F-35, and almost all of them are NATO allies. Turkey was on the list for a period of time, but because they ended up making a choice to go with the Russian missile defense system, they were taken out of the program. So the partners that remain are the ones that you would suspect--Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Canada.

There are even fewer countries that we have sold Reaper drones to-- Australia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, UK, and India.

This is the first time that we would sell these incredibly lethal, incredibly complicated technologies into the heart of the Middle East-- a region that, arguably, is not in need of more weapons.

What we risk doing here is fueling an arms race. Today we may be selling the F-35s and the MQ-9s to the UAE, but the Saudis are going to want it, the Qataris have already requested it, and it just fuels Iran's interest in continuing to build up its own military program.

But, more specifically to this sale, we have to ask ourselves whether the UAE is ready for this technology or whether their behavior over the past several years makes them an unworthy partner for this set of highly complicated U.S. defense technology.

I will stipulate, as I think every Member of this body will, that the UAE is often a very important ally of the United States. There is an important cooperative relationship that exists between the United States and the UAE. We share counterterrorism information together. We were both involved in the fight against ISIS. We work together to counter Iranian influence in the region. And, of course, the UAE's recognition of Israel is good for the United States as well.

But for as many places as we cooperate with UAE, there are many points of division, and those points of division often involve the use of U.S. military technology against the interests of the United States.

The UAE has been, for years, involved in a civil war in Yemen that is terrible for U.S. national security interests. They may not be as involved as they were a couple of years ago, but they are still a barrier to peace. They still refuse to make humanitarian contributions to help the situation on the ground. So far in 2020, there are zero dollars from the UAE put into the U.N. appeal to try to fight off starvation and cholera inside Yemen.

At one point, they took U.S. equipment and they handed it to extremist militias inside Yemen. That is open-source reporting. The UAE copped to it when the reporters asked them whether they had done it. They gave our equipment to Salafist militias inside a theater of war. There are other reports that they were dropping American-made TOW missiles out of the sky into areas of that country that were controlled by al-Qaida-aligned elements. And they are, right now, as we speak, in violation of the Libya arms embargo.

The U.N. Panel of Experts came to the conclusion that the majority of arms transfers into Libya to the Haftar armed forces were either from Jordan or the United Arab Emirates. The panel found that the UAE was in repeated noncompliance with the arms embargo.

And guess what is on the list of the weapons that the UAE was transferring into Libya in violation of a U.S.-supported arms embargo-- armed drones. We are talking about selling the UAE the most lethal, most advanced armed drone technology in the world today, and as we speak, the UAE is in violation of the arms embargo to Libya, fueling that civil war, specifically sending drones into that theater.

So I am not here to say that we shouldn't be in the security business with the UAE. There are a lot of important common projects. But the question is, with a country that is part of the problem more often than part of the solution in Yemen, a country that is in existing violation of an arms embargo in Libya, a country that has just within the last several years transferred our weapons to al-Qaida-aligned militias, without resolving those issues, is this the moment to be selling, for the first time ever, F-35s, armed drones into the heart of the Middle East?

One last caution. The countries that I mentioned on this list are by and large in business with the United States and not with China and Russia. The UAE has pretty deep and complicated defense relationships with China, Russia, and Chinese and Russian companies. Query whether we can be absolutely certain that the technology on board those fighter jets, those drones, is going to stay in the right hands.

There arguably is no other country on the list for the F-35s that does as much business with China and Russia as the UAE does. In fact, as I mentioned, we pulled the F-35 program from Turkey because they are involved with Russia on a very complicated and important ground defense system, and we are just learning about the nature of the partnerships that the UAE has with the Chinese and the Russians.

It stands to reason that this would be one of the issues that a consultative process with Congress would resolve. It also stands to reason that we could probably come to a conclusion during that consultative process.

If the UAE really wants those weapons, wants to be the first country in the heart of the Middle East to get the F-35 or the Reaper drones, then I assume they would want to be able to assure Congress and the administration that there is no chance of technology transfer into the wrong hands. That is what the congressional consultative process would have gotten us, but it didn't happen in this case, and so we are stuck with this vote--a means for Congress to stand up for its right to participate in this question of arms sales.

Believe me, my Republican colleagues are going to want that right when a Democratic administration comes into office. You are not going to want to send a signal today to the Biden administration that they don't have to consult with you as the majority party, potentially, in 2021. But if you vote against these resolutions, then you are essentially saying the Biden administration doesn't need to consult with Congress on it. They probably will because they want to do the right thing, but anybody who votes against these resolutions is essentially endorsing an end-around of Congress by any administration, Republican or Democratic.

It is also important to say that on policy grounds, it is not time to do these sales. There are too many outstanding questions about who the UAE transfers weapons to, what they are doing in Libya, why they haven't been part of the solution in Yemen, and what their relationship is with some of our most important adversaries around the globe. Until we satisfy the answers to those questions, we should not move forward with this sale.

Finally, there is no threat to the accords between UAE and Israel unwinding if we simply press pause on this sale until those questions are answered.

I do want to be in business with the UAE. I think they are an important defense partner. But I think there is far too much at stake with the sale of these weapons right now to rush it through, and I don't think there is any downside risk if we were to say ``not now'' until we get all of our t's crossed and all of our i's dotted.

Let's stand up for Congress's prerogative on the sale of arms to foreign countries. Let's slow down this process that has been rushed, potentially to the great detriment of U.S. national security. Let's support these resolutions of disapproval this afternoon.

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