The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Nomination of John P. Abizaid (Executive Calendar)” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S2366-S2368 on April 10, 2019.
The Department oversees energy policies and is involved in how the US handles nuclear programs. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the Department's misguided energy regulations have caused large losses to consumers for decades.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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 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 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.
