Congress to Iraq’s Maliki: Be a Good Boy to Get Guns
By Josh Rogin
Capitol Hill was ready to give Apache helicopters to Baghdad to help fight al Qaeda, but now senators worry the prime minister will use the weapons on domestic enemies.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki still hasn’t done enough to prove that he can be trusted with heavy U.S. weapons such as Apache helicopters, several top Senators told The Daily Beast.
As Iraqi army forces prepare to mount an offensive to take back control of the city of Fallujah from al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), the Obama administration is in a full court press to urge Congress to allow the sale of dozens of Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopters the Maliki government has been seeking for years. Both the House Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had been holding up the sales, out of concern Maliki will use them against his domestic political enemies. Senators in both parties also lament Maliki’s increasingly sectarian style of governing and his alleged cooperation with Iran to aid the Syrian regime.
The Daily Beast has learned that the House Foreign Affairs Committee has now dropped its hold on the Apache sales but one senior senator still refuses to allow it to go through – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ). Congressional aides said Tuesday that Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns has been lobbying Menendez to release his hold on the sales and Burns has also been reaching out to other senators who have problems with Maliki. Maliki pressed Vice President Joe Biden to deal with congressional opposition to the Apache sales during his November trip to Washington.
Menendez said Tuesday he was reviewing a letter sent to him by Maliki outlining steps he is taking to govern more equitably and ensure American weapons would be used only for counterterrorism, but Menendez has not yet agreed to allow the Apache sales.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/08/congress-to-iraq-s-maliki-be-a-good-boy-to-get-guns.html
