[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 62 (Wednesday, April 10, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2366-S2368]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of John P. Abizaid

  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to speak today about the vote we 
cast earlier confirming GEN John Abizaid, Retired, to be U.S. 
Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
  I was proud to vote for him. I think he is very well qualified for 
that position. The position has been vacant since 2017. Other critical 
countries in this most important region are without Ambassadors--Egypt, 
Jordan, and Pakistan.
  General Abizaid has his work cut out for him, and I want to speak 
specifically about some of the challenges in Saudi Arabia now.
  I believe there is a great day of reckoning that is now pending in 
the U.S.-Saudi relationship.
  Last week, the House of Representatives passed a Senate resolution 
ordering the President to stop U.S. military action in support of Saudi 
Arabia's intervention in Yemen's civil war. The Senate had earlier 
acted on that bill in 2018. It went to the House and died. The Senate 
took up the bill again recently, and the House passed it. The bill is 
now on its way to the President's desk.
  The President has indicated that he is likely to veto the bill, to 
continue U.S. support for Saudi military activity in Yemen. If that 
happens, the bill will come back to the Senate, and the Senate will 
then have the opportunity to vote on whether that veto should be 
overridden.
  The House vote to withdraw U.S. support for this military activity 
was 247 to 175. The Senate vote was 54 to 46.
  The Yemen civil war has been a humanitarian disaster. Many of my 
colleagues have spoken at length about this, so I will not speak at 
length. Just to underline key points, it has been a humanitarian 
disaster, and the United States should not be involved. Saudi 
intervention has made it worse.
  As of November 2018, nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed, nearly 
11,000 had been wounded--the majority by Saudi Arabia-led coalition 
airstrikes, many of which are targeted and prosecuted in amateurish 
ways. Those statistics are according to the Office of the U.N. High 
Commissioner for

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Human Rights. The actual human casualties are actually much higher 
because the war has led to famine and disease outbreaks that have 
killed many more. Thousands have been displaced by fighting, and 
millions are suffering from shortages of food and medical care, with 
the country on the brink of famine. There are 12 to 13 million 
civilians at risk of starvation largely because of the effects of this 
civil war.
  In addition to the poor prosecution of this military activity by 
Saudi Arabia, there are other issues we have to grapple with.
  A Virginia resident who is a Saudi citizen, Jamal Khashoggi, who was 
a journalist for the Washington Post, criticized the Saudi policy in 
Yemen. For his advocacy against the war, the Government of Saudi Arabia 
lured him into their consulate in Istanbul and then tortured and 
assassinated him, dismembering his body with a bone saw. Then the Saudi 
Government engaged in a massive misinformation and disinformation 
campaign, lying to the United States and to the world about what had 
happened, saying that he had left the Embassy on his own, saying that 
it had been an accident, coming up with all manner of excuses before 
the even cursory investigation demonstrated that he had been 
assassinated.
  The U.S. intelligence community is unified in their assessment of 
what happened to this Virginia resident--a gross violation of human 
rights to assassinate a journalist, especially in a safe haven, which 
is what a consulate is supposed to be.
  In addition to the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia has 
been arresting civil rights activists for years, including, recently, 
two Virginia residents--Aziza al-Youssef, who is a Saudi citizen who 
studied at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and then went 
to back to Saudi Arabia to teach women computer science. Her son, Salah 
al-Haidar, also has been arrested for advocating for women's rights. 
What rights are they advocating for? The right of women to drive. The 
right of women to make some of their own decisions under Saudi law. 
Decisions by women cannot be made independently but must generally be 
agreed to by a father or a husband. Simply for advocating that women be 
treated as equal, with equal rights, these Virginia residents and many 
others have been jailed and tortured.
  One would think that the United States would be up in arms about the 
assassination of a U.S. resident journalist, about the arrest of U.S. 
residents, including U.S. citizens advocating for women's rights, but 
that is not the case. The President refuses to submit a report 
determining whether Jamal Khashoggi's murder was a human rights 
violation.
  The Magnitsky Act was designed to promote cooperation between the 
legislative and the executive branches. When Congress has information 
that suggests there is a significant human rights violation by a 
foreign government, we write a letter to the President. The President 
has 120 days to investigate and then offer a determination as to 
whether there was a human rights violation. It is a cooperative 
dialogue. We wrote the letter, 120 days passed, and President Trump and 
the administration will not answer it. They will not say there was a 
human rights violation. They will not say there wasn't a human rights 
violation.
  I am not aware of their doing this for any other nation. For Saudi 
Arabia, they are ignoring the clear requirements of the Magnitsky Act. 
President Trump said: ``It could very well be that the Crown Prince had 
knowledge of this event--maybe he did and maybe he didn't.'' That 
comment is at odds with the assessment of the U.S. intelligence 
community that this assassination was an official act of the Saudi 
Arabian Government that would not have happened without the knowledge 
of the Crown Prince, M.B.S.
  The relationship following these arrests and this assassination has 
not been downgraded or suffered repercussions within this 
administration--in fact, to the contrary. Two weeks ago, right before 
an Armed Services Committee hearing where Secretary of Energy Rick 
Perry was testifying, we learned that the Trump administration has 
approved secret transfers of nuclear technical information from 
American companies to Saudi Arabia on seven occasions since 2017. These 
transfers are called Part 810 authorizations. They require an approval 
of the Department of Energy. Under my cross-examination, Secretary 
Perry was forced to confirm that, yes, the administration has 
authorized on seven occasions transfers of this nuclear know-how to 
Saudi Arabia.
  In the past, when these transfers were approved, they were made 
public so that the American public and Congress could exercise 
oversight on which nations in the world are being given nuclear 
technology, but in this instance and possibly others in this 
administration, the approvals were kept secret.
  Why are they secret now? We know that Saudi Arabia is intent on 
building a nuclear program. That is well covered. But they haven't 
agreed to the nonproliferation rules that would prevent the development 
of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty is a bedrock 
principle of international law that the United States has supported for 
a very long time.
  The principle is simple. We would not want countries to get nuclear 
technology unless they give us guarantees that technology is only for 
peaceful use, medical research, power production but not to produce 
nuclear weapons.
  We are transferring this technical know-how to the Saudi Arabian 
Government secretly, without yet requiring that they sign on to the 
important safety protections in the NPT. It is only logical that 
Congress would want to know more about these approvals to make sure 
they don't spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
  In the recent hearing, I asked Secretary Perry about whether the 
secret approvals of nuclear information transfer occurred before or 
after the October 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi. He claimed not to 
know. He has indicated he would provide that information in response to 
written questions. I submitted the written questions. He has still not 
provided the information. It is wrong to do these transfers without 
letting Congress know; it is wrong to do these transfers when Saudi 
Arabia has not yet agreed to the principles that would disallow nuclear 
proliferation; and it would certainly be wrong to agree to transfers of 
this kind of information after the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, 
but as of yet the administration hasn't given us the data.
  Beyond just the timing, who is getting these secret approvals? 
Secretary Perry said the approvals were secret because there is 
proprietary information. Companies might not want to have information 
that they have developed through their own research available to all, 
but that doesn't explain it. You don't have to give the proprietary 
information to indicate what company has gotten an approval on what day 
to do the transfer.
  Who is getting these secret approvals? One major nuclear firm, 
Westinghouse, has been reported as a frontrunner in the competitive 
effort to do nuclear reactor construction in Saudi Arabia. Westinghouse 
is owned by the same investors who bailed White House adviser Jared 
Kushner out of a bad real estate deal. Remember, Jared Kushner was 
originally denied a security clearance in the White House due to 
concerns about foreign influence and personal financial conflicts. 
Additional reporting connects disgraced National Security Advisor 
Michael Flynn--who has been convicted for lying about his ties to and 
communication with foreign governments--to the push for the Saudi 
nuclear deal.
  Finally, earlier today, I asked Secretary Pompeo in a Foreign 
Relations Committee hearing about public reports in The National 
Interest, in September of 2018, that say the Saudis have a robust anti-
ballistic missile program that has been largely built on Chinese 
missiles--missiles from China that were constructed originally to carry 
nuclear warheads--but that the Saudis have apparently used with 
nonnuclear payloads or outfitted with nonnuclear payloads.
  The National Interest article that I entered into the Record, dated 
September 21, 2018, indicated that, in Saudi Arabia, these missiles 
have been arranged so some of them would be directed toward Tehran and 
others would be directed toward Israel. All of these

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issues are on the table: poor prosecution of a civil war leading to 
humanitarian disaster, the murder of a U.S. resident journalist, the 
arrest of U.S. residents for women's rights activism, secret transfers 
of nuclear technology without letting Congress know, and then the story 
I asked Secretary Pompeo about today. The buildup of an anti-ballistic 
missile program based significantly on Chinese missiles leads me to 
ask: Why would we help Saudi Arabia in a disastrous war in Yemen? Why 
would we turn a blind eye to Saudi human rights abuses? Why would we 
transfer nuclear know-how and plan for a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia 
when they haven't agreed to nonproliferation rules that we expect other 
Nations to agree to in a way that would possibly spark an arms race in 
the Middle East? My final question is, who in the United States is 
benefiting from this?
  When I asked the Secretary of State this morning, again, on the dates 
of the nuclear approvals and did they occur before or after the 
assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, I am sure he knew I was going to ask 
him that question. I asked Secretary Perry the question 2 weeks ago. I 
submitted that question for the record. He knew I was going to ask him 
that question, and he said he couldn't give me any information about 
the approvals; he would have to get back to me about them.
  Congress is not a student government. Congress is supposed to, as the 
article I branch, exercise oversight over important matters. There is 
hardly anything more important than the spread of nuclear technologies 
that could be used to proliferate weapons of mass destruction anywhere 
in the world, especially in a region as dangerous as the Middle East.
  These are the items that Ambassador Abizaid will need to deal with in 
his new role, but we need to exercise proper congressional oversight of 
this relationship because there are so many problems with it right now 
that are not being addressed by this administration. I think only 
Congress can address them. I hope my colleagues will join me with that 
oversight.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.