WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon and State Department failed to investigate whether the Saudi-led coalition used US military support to carry out repeated airstrikes and other airstrikes. published on Wednesday. . Criticism of civilian casualties in Saudi-led coalition airstrikes that have occasionally hit wedding parties, funerals, hospitals and other civilian gatherings has clouded arms sales and other US military support to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. when they started a war in Yemen in 2015. The 7-year-old war has failed to oust its Iranian allies, the Houthi rebels who have taken over the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and much of the rest of northern Yemen. Under the mediation of the United States, the United Nations and other international mediators, all parties to the conflict have been involved in what US officials say is a promising but fragile ceasefire this spring and summer. The publication of the critical report by the Government Accountability Office comes the day after the White House confirmed that President Joe Biden is planning a trip to Saudi Arabia in July in an effort to strengthen relations with the oil-producing kingdom. High oil and gas prices are pushing up inflation in the United States and threatening the prospects of Biden Democrats and Biden himself in the upcoming election. Israel and other allies have also urged the US president to mend ties with Saudi Arabia and de facto Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman in the interests of regional security. Biden has taken office, blaming Saudi Arabia for the deaths of non-combatants in Yemen and the assassination of US-based journalist Jamal Kasogi in 2018. The U.S. intelligence community says Prince Mohammed most likely ordered his assassination. Biden promised at the beginning of his term that the United States would withhold any offensive US military assistance to Saudi Arabia. News and rights organizations have reported repeated deaths of civilians responsible for coalition airstrikes, and UN investigators have confirmed several of the accounts. The attacks include a coalition-led airstrike in 2018 on a school bus that killed at least 26 children, according to Human Rights Watch. The United States says it has worked to train Saudi forces in improved targeting and other best practices to minimize harm to innocent civilians. The United Nations estimates that between March 2015 and August 2021, some 23,000 Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in Yemen killed or injured more than 18,000 civilians. Houthi rebels are also widely accused of human rights abuses, including forcing children to fight and gaining food and fuel that civilians desperately need. Yemen is the poorest country by far in the Arabian Peninsula. Aid groups and international organizations say the war has deepened food insecurity for millions of people there. The GAO, an independent watchdog tasked with assisting government oversight, has examined how well the US government has monitored the role of extensive US military assistance to its two Gulf strategic partners, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. civilian deaths. Congress commissioned Wednesday’s report from the GAO last year. The United States has provided more than $ 54 billion in military support — from missiles and aircraft to maintenance and training — to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from 2015 to 2021, the GAO said. State Department officials told GAO investigators that they were examining civilian casualties and the use of the equipment in weighting U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the report said. “In addition, (Department of Defense) and government officials have stated that they have made some efforts to understand the extent to which US-made defense equipment has been used in Yemen,” the report said. “However, despite numerous reports that airstrikes and other attacks by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates caused extensive civilian casualties in Yemen, the DOD has not reported and the state has not been able to provide evidence that equipment shipped to Saudi Arabia or the UAE, “said GAO researchers. In a written response to GAO investigators, State Department auditor Jeffrey Mounts challenged the GAO’s overall conclusion. Mounts wrote that the State Department had provided evidence of government oversight of possible US weapons involvement in attacks that claimed civilian lives or damaged civilian infrastructure. However, GAO investigators said the documents provided by the State Department did not change their conclusion. The report also quoted U.S. Central Command officials as saying that “they do not know how State Department security cooperation officials in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would obtain the necessary information to determine whether US-made defense equipment was used in the U.S. from Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates against anything other than legitimate military targets. Outside the Saudi Embassy on Wednesday, local government officials in Washington and’s supporters of Saudi Arabia and Yemen unveiled a sign that recently renamed the square in front of the Tropos Embassy. Tawakkol Karman, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize from Yemen, accused Biden at the street ceremony that he planned to meet with Prince Mohammed, well known by his initials. “When you meet MBS, will it serve peace in Yemen?” asked Biden. “No way.” Asked on Wednesday for comment, the State Department cited measures to minimize losses, but added that “we recognize that there is work to be done.” Representatives of the Saudi and Pentagon embassies did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the GAO report. The State Department briefed the GAO on the steps it has taken to comply with Biden’s 2021 directive that the United States only provide defense support to Saudi Arabia, as opposed to material that would help it fight the war in Yemen. This includes telling the State Department in Saudi Arabia to use new air-to-air missiles only against cross-border airstrikes and not to hit ground targets, according to the report. The State Department said it had “cut” sales of two other munitions due to concerns about civilian casualties. The release of the report on Wednesday conceals what the government says is confidential material from the original release, which was not made public. The leaked material consisted of “a relatively small amount of information” about the Pentagon’s advisory work and the State Department’s internal decision-making, said Jason Bair, director of the GAO’s Office of International Affairs and Commerce.
