WASHINGTON – The State Department said on Monday that its inspector general had found Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took the right steps when declaring an “emergency” last year to go through $ 8.1 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
But a statement issued by the department citing that statement did not mention another important finding: that the State Department failed to fully assess the humanitarian risks of arms sales to the Gulf nations, which American bombs have been used to wage a devastating war in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians.
The inspector general also found that the state Department did not take steps to reduce necessary civilian casualties and limit possible legal liability associated with the sale of the weapons, according to a U.S. government official reviewing a draft report. .
Neither the State Department nor its Office of the Inspector General, which investigates corruption and waste in the agency, released the final report on Monday, so there was no way to independently assess their findings. A spokeswoman for the inspector general’s office said the unclassified portion of the report would be released to Congress on Tuesday. The report has a large classified section with heavy editorial staff, according to U.S. officials.
The statement from State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus was an unusual attempt by the bureau to characterize the report to the public before it was released. A department official also held a telephone briefing with reporters around 5 p.m. as part of an effort to provide the agency’s perspective on the report. Journalists on the call repeatedly asked the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, to release the report so that they could write about it with complete accuracy, but the official refused to do so.
The official said the report recommended that the US government take more measures to reduce civilian casualties in relation to the use of weapons by the Gulf Arab nations, the problem at the heart of the bipartisan opposition in Congress and among human rights advocates for the export. The official said the government was trying to make greater efforts to achieve that.
On Monday night, Representative Eliot L. Engel, a New York Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized the State Department’s actions, saying, “This is an obvious pre-spin of the State Department. findings stem from an attempt to distract and offend. He named the briefing official, R. Clarke Cooper, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs.
Saudi Arabia has led a Yemeni air war that has resulted in what the United Nations has called the worst humanitarian disaster in the world. American-made ammunition, mainly from Raytheon, has helped kill thousands of civilians, many of them women and children. The United Arab Emirates plays a central role in the Saudi-led coalition, but has recently picked up its presence.
In early 2017, when reports of civilian casualties were widely circulated, lawmakers from both parties put a stop to further arms exports to the Arab peoples in the Gulf, citing urgent humanitarian concerns. They continued to do so in 2018, and their fury with Saudi Arabia escalated after the horrific murder of Saudi agents by Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who was a resident of Virginia.
But in May 2019, Mr Pompeo announced a “distress”, citing Iranian activity in the Middle East, to justify the congressional grip and push through arms sales. President Trump had strongly sold the advice.
The following month, Mr. Engel asked the then Department of State Inspector General, Steve A. Linick, to open an investigation into Mr. Pompeo’s action. A central question was whether Mr Pompeo had acted illegally in making the ’emergency declaration’.
Mr Pompeo refused to be interviewed by Mr Linick, instead submitting a written statement to the Inspector General’s questions. Mr. Linick also conducted a separate investigation into whether Mr. Pompeo and his wife, Susan, used departmental resources for personal matters.
Mr Trump fired Mr Linick in May at Mr Pompeo’s threat. Democratic lawmakers have opened an inquiry into whether Mr Pompeo did so in retaliation for the investigations. Mr Pompeo said Mr Linick had undermined the ‘Department Department’ but did not give details.
In June, Mr Linick told lawmakers that Brian Bulatao, a senior department official who is an old friend of Mr Pompeo, tried to “bully” him to end the investigation.
Last week, the department said Mr. Linick’s replacement in an acting capacity, Stephen J. Akard, had resigned.
Mr Linick’s staff have briefed State Department officials on his findings in November 2019 and this March, and a draft report was circulated widely this summer. The language in the draft report on the department’s failure to assess the humanitarian risks of coercion by arms sales will likely appear in the final version.
The State Department statement on Monday cited three short phrases from a single page in the final report. One sentence said that the “emergency certification was well executed.”
The statement also criticized Mr. Engel and Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, for comments they doubted about the “emergency” statement. And it criticized The New York Times for an article that mentioned that Mr. Linick was investigating whether Mr. Pompeo had acted illegally.
“The role of the Inspector General’s Office is to investigate allegations of wrongdoing,” said Ari Isaacman Bevacqua, a Times spokeswoman. “In the referenced story, The Times reported on an ongoing investigation. We stand by our reporting, the facts of which are not disputed. ”
That article also said that U.S. officials are considering ending the decades-old informal process by which Congress assesses the proposed arms sales, which would help push through notable packages now being controlled by lawmakers.
Edward Wong reported from Washington, and Michael LaForgia from Spokane, Wash.
