US Defense Sales to Bahrain Rose Before Crackdown

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/11

Published on Saturday, June 11, 2011 by Associated Press

US Defense Sales to Bahrain Rose Before Crackdown

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government approved $200 million in military sales from American firms to Bahrain in 2010, months before the autocratic regime was rocked by instability amid a harsh crackdown on protesters, according to a State Department report.


The annual report, which provides totals of U.S.-authorized arms sale agreements between American defense firms and foreign governments, showed a $112 million rise in licensed defense sales to Bahrain between the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years. The U.S. had green-lighted $88 million in military exports to Bahrain in 2009.

Much of the flow of military hardware to Bahrain was for aircraft and military electronics, but the U.S. also licensed $760,000 in exports of rifles, shotguns and assault weapons in 2010. Since mid-February of this year, the Persian Gulf kingdom has confronted demonstrators with cordons of armed military and police firing live ammunition. At least 31 people have died and hundreds more injured in the clashes.

The possibility that American-built weapons might have been used against protesters roused by the region's pro-democracy movement raised questions in Congress and helped prompt a State Department decision in March to review its defense trade relationships with several Middle East nations. Some transactions are on hold and the review has broadened into a policy reassessment that could alter U.S. defense trade oversight

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