Killing of Khashoggi tests U.S. defense industry as backlash builds on Capitol Hill

[DonViejo]

By Beth Reinhard, Tom Hamburger and Emma Brown November 21 at 9:49 PM

The powerful U.S. defense industry is facing a rare challenge to its influence on Capitol Hill as support for arms sales to Saudi Arabia has rapidly eroded following the killing last month of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi government operatives.

The defense industry’s typically aggressive lobby has gone quiet as gruesome details of Khashoggi’s death have leaked and American intelligence officials have laid blame at the feet of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Even as President Trump has reiterated his support for continued sales of U.S. weapons to the kingdom, congressional opposition to those sales and to U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen has mounted in recent weeks — testing the power of an industry that has sold tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons systems to the kingdom since the 1950s.

Growing bipartisan support for Senate legislation to cut off the arms sales marks a historic disruption in a seemingly inviolable arms-for-oil trade relationship that stretches back decades and is an unusual setback for one of the most influential lobbies in Washington.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/killing-of-khashoggi-tests-us-defense-industry-as-backlash-builds-on-capitol-hill/2018/11/21/15a1df52-dc7d-11e8-aa33-53bad9a881e8_story.html