U.S. Sends Ukraine Weapons it Seized Intended for Yemen During Saudi Arabia's Bombing Campaign, Blockade
President Joe Biden, who served as vice president under Barack Obama when the war broke out, was strongly behind Saudi Arabia's effort
The U.S. announced on social media Tuesday that it sent Ukraine stockpiles of weapons that it seized from May 2021 to February 2023 that were intended for Yemen — at the same time the U.S. was backing Saudi Arabia’s relentless bombing campaign and brutal blockade of Yemen — creating the worst humanitarian crisis in the world at the time.
Centcom posted on social media that proudly stated that the U.S. provided Ukraine “over 5,000 AK-47s, machine guns, sniper rifles, RPG-7s and over 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition” so it can continue its war against Russia. The statement read, “The government obtained ownership of these munitions on December 1, 2023, through the Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture claims against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”
The U.S. said the munitions were "being transferred from Iran to the Houthis in violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2216.”
These weapons supposedly intended for Houthis were sent during the U.S.-backed Saudi War on Yemen, which led to a humanitarian crisis that was one of the worst in the world at the time. About half of Yemen’s nearly 30 million people were unable to access food for survival.
Brookings wrote in September 2021: “Between March 2015 and July 2021, the Saudis conducted a minimum of 23,251 air raids, which killed or injured 18,616 civilians. The Houthis, known formally as Ansarallah, launch missiles in retaliation but if Saudi airstrikes ceased, the Houthis would have little reason to provoke their powerful neighbor. As long as the U.S. materially and rhetorically backs the Saudis’ war of choice, Biden’s assertion that the U.S. would end support for offensive operations is a lie.”
The report continued:
The U.S. tacitly cooperated with the blockade by not challenging it, and the U.S. Navy occasionally announces it has intercepted smuggled weapons from Iran, suggesting a more active role than the administration admits. Congress should investigate.
President Joe Biden, who served as vice president under Barack Obama, strongly supported the Saudi-led war. Despite Biden vowing in February 2021 to end arms sales to the Saudis — accusing Saudis of “murdering children,” he approved a $650 million arms deal with the Saudi’s in November of that year.
“The Biden administration has condemned the Iran-backed Houthi actions roughly 13 times since taking office. Not one condemnation of Saudi bombings of Yemen though,” Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said in a tweet at the time.
Daniel Kovalik, a professor of International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, told Al Mayadeen at the time that the “Biden administration never had any intention to stop aiding the war efforts against Yemen.”
“This is so because, since the war’s inception in 2015, this has been a U.S. war as much as a Saudi-UAE war,” Kovalik said. “However, Biden knows that this was not popular with the Democratic base.”
Yemen’s civil war started in 2014, when the Houthis, who were ruling large sections of Yemen for over 1,000 years, overthrew the unelected president put in control by the Saudi’s, took control of Sana’a, and then seized the presidential palace.
The Saudi-backed coalition was concerned that Houthi rule in Yemen would mean rival Iran would gain a foothold at the border with Saudi Arabia.
We reported on 26 April 2022 that the U.S.’s decision to sail eight warships into the Red Sea ostensibly to counter crimes being committed in the waterway was criticized by Houthi leadership that said the move ran counter to Washington’s claim that it supports the ceasefire and does nothing more than to enshrine the “aggression and blockade on Yemen.”
There has since been a tense truce between the neighboring countries that has been strained by the U.S. bombing campaign over the Houthis desire to end the Israel genocide in Gaza.
TRENDPOST: As we have been reporting since the outbreak of the Yemen war, it was launched from Washington, D.C., by the Saudi Ambassador to the United States in March 2015.
This is how Reuters reported America’s involvement following the Saudi announcement, some two weeks after the Saudis attacked Yemen:
U.S. expedites arms shipments to coalition bombing Yemen
“RIYADH/ADEN (Reuters)—The United States is speeding up arms supplies and bolstering intelligence sharing with a Saudi-led alliance bombing a militia aligned with Iran in neighboring Yemen, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S., a key ally of oil-rich Saudi Arabia, had also set up a coordination center in the Sunni Muslim kingdom, whose forces have led an air campaign against the Shi’ite Houthi group which rules most of Yemen.
‘Saudi Arabia is sending a strong message to the Houthis and their allies that they cannot overrun Yemen by force,’ he told reporters in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
‘As part of that effort, we have expedited weapons deliveries, we have increased our intelligence sharing, and we have established a joint coordination planning cell in the Saudi operation center,’ Blinken added.”
And this is from The Council on Foreign Relations six months after the Saudi’s launched the war:
“Nevertheless, since March 25, the United States has been providing in-air refueling, combat-search-and-rescue support (including the rescue of two Saudi pilots whose helicopter crashed in the Gulf of Aden), detailing forty-five intelligence analysts to help advise on target selection, and redoubling weapons exports and contractor support to the GCC countries.”
Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the United States is primarily as a source of cash for weapons. From October 2010 to when he left office, the Obama administration had sold $90.4 billion in weapons to the Gulf kingdom, according to the Congressional Research Service.