US has not fully investigated own role in Yemen rights abuses, watchdog finds

Source: The Guardian

US has not fully investigated own role in Yemen rights abuses, watchdog finds

Government Accountability Office also criticizes Biden’s move to classify Saudi weapons as ‘offensive’ or ‘defensive’ as meaningless

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
@skirchy
Wed 15 Jun 2022 19.45 BST
Last modified on Thu 16 Jun 2022 05.13 BST

The US government has not fully investigated its own role in perpetuating human rights abuses in Yemen, according to a congressional watchdog report that offered a damning assessment of both the Trump and Biden administrations’ commitment to tracking violations of humanitarian law.

A report by the Government Accountability Office, which examined US weapons sales to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, also raised serious doubts about one of Joe Biden’s first foreign policy as president, when he announced that his administration was ending US support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen.

At the time, in February 2021, the move was seen as an attempt to show the world that the US would no longer be an unquestioning ally to its allies in the Gulf.

But the GAO found that the Biden administration’s move to classify weapons as offensive or defensive was largely meaningless. When asked by the GAO how they had distinguished between equipment used for defensive purposes and offensive purposes, state department officials “could not provide a definition for equipment that is defensive in nature”.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-yemen-human-rights-abuses-gao-watchdog