From Hillary Clinton’s State Department
By David Sirota
By David Sirota and Andrew Perez
Even by the standards of arms deals between the United
States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American
defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 billion worth of
advanced fighter jets to the United States’ oil-rich ally in the Middle
East.
Israeli officials were agitated, reportedly complaining to
the Obama administration that this substantial enhancement to Saudi air
power risked disrupting the region’s
fragile balance of power. The deal
appeared to collide with the State Department’s documented concerns about the repressive policies of the Saudi royal family.
But now, in late 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department
was formally clearing the sale, asserting that it was in the national
interest. At a press conference in Washington to announce the
department’s approval, an assistant secretary of state, Andrew Shapiro, declared that the deal had been “a top priority” for Clinton personally. Shapiro, a longtime aide to Clinton since her Senate days, added that the “U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army have excellent relationships in Saudi Arabia.”
These were not the only relationships bridging leaders of
the two nations. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of
state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to
the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen
with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before
the deal was finalized, Boeing — the defense contractor that
manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to
acquire, the F-15 – contributed $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release.
The Saudi deal was one of dozens of arms sales approved by
Hillary Clinton’s State Department that placed weapons in the hands of
governments that had also donated money to the Clinton family
philanthropic empire, an International Business Times investigation has
found.
Under Clinton’s leadership, the State Department approved
$165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose
governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an
IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure —
derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary
of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) — represented nearly
double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and
approved by the State Department during the same period of President
George W. Bush’s second term.
The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151
billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that
donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase
in completed salesto
those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration.
These extra sales were part of a broad increase in American military
exports that accompanied Obama’s arrival in the White House. The 143
percent increase in U.S. arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors
compares to an 80 percent increase in such sales to all countries over
the same time period.
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