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WASHINGTON - Congressman Charles Rangel today expressed outrage over the Bush Administration's announced $20 billion weapons sale to Saudi Arabia, and said he would join in efforts to challenge the President's plan.
"I am outraged by the Bush Administration's plan to sell $20 billion in advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia," Congressman Rangel said. "We're rewarding a country with one of the worst records of supporting terrorists in the region and undermining U.S. troops on the ground.
"It seems the Administration cannot resist doing business as usual with the Saudi royal family which has a long history of cozy relations with the Bush family," Congressman Rangel said. "There is no other way to explain it."
The weapons sale to the Saudis would provide the Middle East kingdom with advanced satellite bombs, upgraded fighter aircraft and naval vessels, according to reports in the press. The package of sales would also include $13 billion in military assistance for Egypt spread over 10 years and $30 billion for Israel.
"I am surprised that the government of Israel is prepared to join in this arms race in the Middle East," Congressman Rangel said.
The Congressman said he intended to join with his colleagues, Reps. Anthony Weiner and Robert Wexler, in introducing a prospective Joint Resolution of Disapproval to trigger a congressional review of the plan.
"Sending our best weaponry to a country that has sat on the sidelines while nearly 4,000 Americans have been killed in Iraq would be an insult to our troops and their families," Congressman Rangel said. "Here we're involved in an endless war and our so-called ally even refuses to hold our coats while Americans do the fighting.
"Saudi Arabia has sent not one soldier to relieve the thousands of Americans who have been killed or injured, or those who have been repeatedly separated from their families on extended deployments in the sweltering desert."
In addition, Congressman Rangel said there were credible claims, reported by the Baker-Hamilton commission, that the Saudis had allowed wealthy donors to send millions of dollars to support Sunni insurgents in Iraq, and done nothing to stop the flow of large numbers of Saudi militants into the country.
"Our troops should be out of Iraq, and it only adds to the evidence of the wrongness of our policy when we are prepared to arm to the teeth a country that actually refuses to lift a finger on behalf of our troops but is notorious for suppressing its own people," Congressman Rangel said.
Congressman Rangel said the announcement of the arms deal was the culmination of a series of events involving Iraq that he found shocking. "I was really sickened by the pictures I saw on TV of Iraqis celebrating a victory in a soccer game while our young fighters were dodging land mines under heavy backpacks in hundred degree heat," Congressman Rangel said.
"It's incomprehensible that the Parliament in Baghdad would go off on summer vacation while their country is in flames, and unbelievable that the government promises soccer players $10,000 rewards while half the country's families are living on a few dollars a day.
"It's time to end a conflict that has reached this level of madness. Iraq is taking the lives of our bravest young men and women, and costing the treasury $12 billion a month. The White House and their allies in Congress are ignoring reality and crying poverty as they deny our own children decent health care and education. It's time to end this fiasco that we're calling a war."
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