![]() Each year, the US provides around $4bn of military support to the regime and since war broke out between Israel and Hamas last month, the US sent an additional $14bn in military aid. The US has been a steadfast supporter of Israel for decades, both diplomatically and militarily. In a report last January, The New York Times, citing US and Israeli officials, revealed that the Pentagon sent hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to Ukraine from the so-called American emergency stockpile in Israel to help meet Ukraine’s need for artillery shells in the war with Russia. Under US law, there must be 30 days prior notice to Congress before arms transfer, but the Biden budget request would allow this to be shortened in “extraordinary” circumstances. Paul, whose resignation last month due to US military aid to Israel caused a stir in Washington, admitted that “the President’s emergency supplemental funding request, would essentially create a free-flowing pipeline to provide any defense articles to Israel by the simple act of placing them in the WRSA-I stockpile, or other stockpiles intended for Israel.”Īccording to experts, the White House request would make it much harder for Congress or the public to monitor US arms transfers to Israel. “By dropping the requirement that such articles be declared excess, it would also increase the existing strain on US military readiness in order to provide more arms to Israel,” stated Josh Paul, who was the director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, for over 11 years. The House has already passed legislation reflecting the White House’s request last month, and it now stands before the Senate. The changes would come in an arms-trade relationship that is already shrouded in secrecy. The report notes that with WRSA-I, Biden seeks to remove nearly all meaningful restrictions on the stockpile and arms transfer to Israel, with plans to lift restrictions on obsolete or surplus weapons, waive an annual spending cap on replenishing the stockpile, remove weapon-specific restrictions, and curtail congressional oversight.Īll of the changes in the Biden budget plan would be permanent, except for lifting the spending cap, which is limited to the 2024 fiscal year. Under the conditions outlined in these requirements, the Israeli regime has been able to tap into these stockpiles and purchase weapons at low costs if effective subsidization of US military aid is used. These warehouses are controlled by a set of strict requirements. The War Reserve Stockpile Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) was created in the 1980s to supply the United States with equipment in the case of a regional war, which is the largest node in a network of de facto US foreign arms stockpiles. ![]() “This request would allow for the transfer of all categories of defense articles,” the proposed budget says. The move was included in the White House’s supplemental budget request, sent to the Senate on October 20, according to the report. ![]() Having the USGS brand name on this early warning system lends a great deal of credibility,” said Rasmussen.Īs technology changes and geopolitical unrest shifts, different mineral commodities may become “critical.” To stay ahead of the curve, Pineault and his team at the DLA will continue to use the USGS early warning screening tool to keep the United States prepared.The Intercept said on Saturday that Biden is seeking to remove all restrictions on the usage of the little-known US weapons stockpiles in Israel that the Pentagon established for use in regional conflicts, to which the Israeli regime had been previously permitted to have access in limited circumstances. “The USGS is world renowned as having an incredible reputation for providing mineral information. ![]() The DLA now uses this USGS tool because, as Pineault explains, it is “mathematically rigorous and elegant.” Tom Rasmussen, the Director of Strategic Plans for the Defense Logistics Agency, agrees. The resultant rankings are used by the DLA to define a cutoff point for analyzing potentially critical materials for shortfalls. In-depth studies allow users to rank each mineral from lower to higher potential criticality. Once the system has filtered out minerals that are not “potentially critical,” the remaining minerals receive further analysis. The system accounts for several variables in identifying critical minerals, including how vulnerable the supply chain is to disruption, how much production growth is expected for the material, and market dynamics.
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