Motion to Discharge--S.J. Res. 78

Floor Speech

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Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose another massive infusion of arms into the volatile Middle East.

Someone must ask the question: Can a lasting peace be purchased with more weapons? Will selling sophisticated fighter jets and weaponized drones bring more stability to the Middle East? Is it wise to pour fuel on the fire that burns in the Middle East?

The Senate today is debating with these joint resolutions whether to disapprove of the announced sale of 50 F-35s and 18 Reaper Drones to the United Arab Emirates, a country that has recently taken encouraging steps specifically toward Israel, but with an overall record that should give concern.

The primary questions we should be asking ourselves are: To what ends has the UAE deployed its military and its military technology in recent years? Does the UAE have a record that we can trust? What military behavior are we encouraging and rewarding with this sale? Will the U.S. bear responsibility if the UAE misuses these incredibly sophisticated weapons?

The answers to these questions are far from clear. In fact, the UAE's record should give us pause. The UAE is not a democracy. Their human rights record is mixed, and their military activities in the region, as a one-time member of the Saudi coalition, contributed to the bloodshed and devastation in Yemen.

On human rights, let's look at some recent reported examples. In 2017, Ahmed Monsoor, a human rights activist, was given a 10-year prison sentence based on his speech. Specifically, he was charged for posting ``false information that harms national unity'' on social media. The charges against him were based on a call for the release of another activist who had been put in prison for political speech. Is this the kind of democracy or lack of democracy and lack of speech that should be rewarded with our most sophisticated weaponry?

In 2017, the UAE government also handed down a 10-year sentence to Nasser bin-Ghaith, an economist, for his criticism of the UAE and Egyptian Governments. Is this the kind of country that deserves our most sophisticated weaponry?

In 2018, the UAE arrested Matthew Hedges, a British citizen and doctoral student, and denied him access to legal counsel for 5 months. They sentenced him to life in prison for spying charges based on a confession that was obtained in an undisclosed location. They were ultimately forced to pardon him after international outrage. Is this the kind of country that we can trust with our most sophisticated weaponry?

The fact that the UAE is willing to buy this technology is not in and of itself justification for the sale. This is the time to carefully study the situation in the region and to consider the effects of accelerating the Middle Eastern arms race in the short-term and in the long-term.

This is why our government shouldn't be rushing into approving this sale; yet our government is moving at warp speed to approve this sale. It is as if we intentionally don't want to consider all of these issues.

The most frequently cited argument in favor of this sale is that the UAE has taken encouraging steps in the last few months. They have normalized relations with Israel, facilitated civilian travel, and more. Great. I am all-in for that.

We should be encouraging peaceful relations between countries. I support those efforts. But it is not clear that dropping advanced military technology into the region is, in fact, encouraging peaceful relations, given how these weapons have been used in recent times.

The UAE spent years bombing Yemen as part of a coalition with Saudi Arabia to stop the Houthis. This bombing campaign was undisciplined and sloppy. Civilians, residents, and other nonmilitary targets were often destroyed. The U.N. reports approximately 7,000 civilians killed in Yemen and over 10,000 wounded.

The Saudi-UAE coalition helped create a humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Amid collapsing public services, the largest cholera epidemic on record has affected at least 2 million people--probably more--and killed almost 4,000. A lot of this is to be blamed on the civil war that had been perpetuated by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

At the height of the destruction, a Yemeni child would die of starvation every 10 minutes. More than 50,000 children have been lost to starvation.

I have argued for years that the United States should play no role in worsening the crisis via an arms pipeline to the coalition that perpetuates this war. American technology helped facilitate this crisis and should be a real concern about sending more American bombs and fighter planes into this region.

If they weren't used wisely in the most recent years in the Yemeni war, will they be used differently in the future? Can we trust the people who were part of a bombing campaign of civilians in Yemen to do an act more wisely with weapons in the future?

Let's also not forget that a media investigation found that weapons that we sent to the coalition--U.S. weapons that were sent to the Saudi-UAE coalition--were lost, and, in some cases, handed over to terrorists. That is right. Military equipment from the United States was sent to the UAE, but it wound up in the hands of terrorists. The Saudi-UAE coalition reportedly used U.S. weapons as currency to win the approval of militias inside Yemen.

To be clear, these activities are against the terms of sale. We told them: You can't give away our weapons. You can't use our weapons to purchase the support of Sunni extremists in Yemen. But they did. This should give us cause for concern. This should make us say: Whoa. Let's stop, and let's pause before we send more weapons into this war.

Not only that, but Iranian proxies captured some of these weapons, and, predictably, pointed them back at the Saudi-UAE coalition. Guns, missiles, and vehicles ended up in the hands of terrorists--weapons that we put on the ground in the Middle East.

The same investigation found Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, MRAPs, in the hands of Sunni allies of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. But guess who some of these Sunni allies were. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. We are talking about the remnants of al-Qaida in Yemen were getting weapons that we were giving to the UAE in Saudi Arabia. Does this sound like the kind of behavior we should reward with more weapons?

One of the MRAPs still had the export label on it indicating that it had been sent from Beaumont, TX, to the UAE before ultimately getting illegally transferred to extremists in Yemen. Is this the kind of behavior we should reward with more of our sophisticated technology?

The serial number on another MRAP in the possession of the Iranian- backed Houthis was traced back to the 2014 sale of U.S. MRAPs to the UAE. So the UAE not only was trading our weapons for support among Sunni extremists, including al-Qaida-affiliated extremists in Yemen, but they also were having their equipment taken by the Houthis. So on both sides of the war in Yemen, we had U.S. weapons. Is it a good idea to flood the Middle East with more of our weapons? Is it a good idea to keep sending weapons that wind up in the hands of people who don't have our best interests at heart?

Now, people say: Well, the UAE is doing better. They have stepped back from the coalition. They are not, you know, fighting as vigorously in the UAE. But there still are reports that UAE is still involved in the civil war in Yemen and that they are still engaged.

The UAE has a very conflicted record on human rights. I mentioned a few of those who have been in prison for 10 years to life for speech-- for speech against the government or even just speech the government doesn't like. But flogging is also used as a form of punishment. There is no true freedom of speech or press in the UAE. Is this the kind of country we should give our most sophisticated technology to

Activists have been held in secret detention centers in the UAE. Electric shocks have been used as a form of punishment in the UAE. Social media statements against the government are criminalized. You can be put in prison for text messages, and people have been put in prison and/or deported for text messages.

The government has used mass trials against dissidents. Statements of support for Qatar were made illegal during the region's diplomatic standoff. Criticisms of government officials were made illegal by decree. This is not an open society; this is not a democracy; and this is decidedly not a country that we should be giving our most sophisticated weaponry to.

Do we believe these arms sales will encourage or discourage bad behavior from the UAE? We are clearly communicating to the UAE that human rights take a backseat to arms sales.

Part of the consideration for these arms sales is the recent developments from the UAE--most prominently, the UAE's normalizing relations with Israel through the Abraham accords. It is a positive development, without a doubt. I am all in favor of it. I am all in favor of trading with the UAE. I am all in favor of Israel trading with the UAE. I am all in favor of good diplomatic relations, but you can also have diplomatic relations without flooding the region with our most sophisticated armaments.

Outwardly, we are told by all involved that the F-35s are not a condition for the Abraham accords, but if you ask whether it is a good idea to send some of our most advanced weaponry to the UAE, we are nonetheless told, if we don't, it might jeopardize the accords. Well, which is it? They are either part of the accords or they are not.

I, frankly, think, if the weapons were not to go, that the advantages to Israel-UAE having diplomatic relations in trade are so great that they will continue. The assurance right now is that we will guarantee what is called Israel's qualitative military edge in the region, even after the sale of F-35s and Reaper drones to the UAE. So the message to Israel is: Yes, we are giving the same advanced fighter jets to the UAE, but we will give you even better jets in the future.

All I can say is, that is a big maybe. And people who accept, on the face of that, that, oh, yes, we are going to guarantee something, but we are giving this same equipment to people who have been on the other side of virtually every other war in the Middle East, I think, is a hopeful promise but not necessarily a guarantee.

The easiest way, if you favor protecting Israel's QME, or military edge, is to stop sending military assets to other countries in the region. We are competing with ourselves right now. We give advanced weaponry to Israel, and then we say we are going to keep your advantage. But then we give the advanced weaponry to the UAE, and so Israel comes back and says we need more. Then we give more to them, and the Saudis want more. And then once we give the weapons to the Saudis, Israel wants more. It is a never-ending arms race between the so-called countries that are actually getting along, not to mention the arms race between those who are opposed to Iran in the region.

The easiest way to protect the qualitative military edge of Israel is to quit sending more advanced weaponry into the region. We have committed to protecting Israel's QME in response to these sales, but we continue to obligate ourselves to increasingly large sales to offset the large sales we have already approved to others, like the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

There is another aspect to the qualitative military edge that is rarely discussed. It is the QME that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikdoms have over Iran. Saudi Arabia is the third biggest purchaser of weapons and the third biggest spender on military of anyone in the world now, but if you add Saudi Arabia's weapons to the Gulf sheikdoms' weaponry, you find that they spend eight times more on their military than Iran. So what kind of response would we imagine?

We may not like what Iran does, but we should at least think about what they will do in response to what we do, and what in response to what the Saudis do and the UAE does and Israel does. Exacerbating the QME inevitably leads to pressure on Iran to further escalate the arms race and becomes a never-ending destructive cycle of more and more weapons.

People say--and this administration has said--we want an agreement with Iran but not just a nuclear agreement. So we got out of the nuclear agreement. We want an agreement on conventional weapons. But how will that work? We asked Iran to limit their weapons, but we keep piling weapons on the other side? Do you think Iran is going to agree to limit their weapons if we keep piling more of our sophisticated weapons into the hands of the Saudis and into the hands of the UAE and others?

There is great concerns with this sale, and rushing it through is a mistake. What happens if the F-35s are shot down? What if Russia or China is able to access our sensitive stealth technology? How will the need for contractors be handled in a secure fashion?

Some supporters of Israel are very worried about this. The Zionist Organization of America, for example, has opposed the sale because it jeopardizes Israel's qualitative military edge. It makes the technologies on which Israel relies less secure.

This statement from the Zionist Organization of America is quite clear: ``The security of both the U.S. and Israel is best served by preventing any other countries from acquiring this advanced aircraft.''

They couldn't be clearer. Even many in Israel were initially, and very vocally, opposed to this sale. Their Minister of Defense, Benny Gantz, said absolutely it was a terrible idea. Their Minister of Settlements, same thing.

I would urge my colleagues to consider the possible consequences of this sale. We should not accelerate an arms race in the Middle East; we should not jeopardize the security of our military technologies; and we should not reward a decade-plus of undesirable behavior by the UAE. I urge a vote in support of these resolutions of disapproval.

Madam President, pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, I move to discharge the Foreign Relations Committee from further consideration of S.J. Res. 78, a joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval of the proposed military sale to the United Arab Emirates of certain defense articles and services.
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