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White House to require assurances from countries receiving weapons that they’re abiding by U.S. law
The Biden administration will be requiring countries that receive weapons from the U.S. to provide “credible and reliable” written assurances to the State Department that they will use those weapons in accordance with the laws of war, according to a national security memorandum released Thursday.
The executive action applies globally to the more than 100 countries that currently receive American arms and aid and adds a new requirement that an annual report be sent to Congress.
The move comes as the Biden administration faces pressure from top Democratic lawmakers to limit civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip as Israel wages its fourth month of war against Hamas. The U.S. provides billions of dollars of military assistance to Israel each year, which some progressives, like independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, have argued, makes the U.S. complicit in civilian deaths.
The IDF has not disclosed how many civilians it estimated it has killed, but Hamas officials in Gaza say the death toll is nearing 28,000. However, Hamas statistics do not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. The IDF claims it has killed 9,000 fighters but did not disclose estimates of civilian casualties. CBS News producer Marwan alGhoul has reported firsthand accounts of hospitals filled with women and children injured in the fighting.
A senior administration official told CBS News that the new memorandum is not being issued because the White House believes that a country is currently violating these standards.
“This is an opportunity to be transparent with the American public [about] what the standards we require countries to adhere to are and how we go about obtaining assurances that they’ll be met,” the official said.
The memo requires written commitments from the more than 100 countries that receive U.S. weapons within 180 days. Those in active conflict, including Israel and Ukraine, must respond within 45 days. If the president doesn’t receive those assurances, the U.S. can cut off assistance.
It also requires the secretaries of state and defense to provide a report to Congress on weapons or assistance provided to other countries within the next 90 days. The first report will include any assistance provided since Jan. 1, 2023.
An administration spokesperson told CBS News that the memo emerged in part from conversations with members of Congress who raised questions about existing standards and how the standards are enforced. Nineteen Democratic senators have pushed for an amendment in the national security supplemental bill being negotiated in Congress to require the use of U.S. supplemental aid to comply with U.S. international law.
“U.S. security assistance should always be used in line with our nation’s interests and our values, including upholding international humanitarian law,” Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said in a statement Thursday. “But until now, that was based on sentiment, not substance.” Van Hollen is part of the group of lawmakers pressing the White House for more accountability on weapons and aid being sent to Israel.
Existing legislation known as the Leahy Law prevents the U.S. from providing weapons or funds for military assistance to groups when there is credible information indicating the groups have violated human rights. However, former Senator Pat Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, has said that past administrations have waived application of the law to the Israeli Defense Forces.
“What is being done to apply the Leahy law now? I don’t know,” Leahy told a Vermont news site, News & Citizen, in November. “I know past administrations have been too concerned to do it. It should apply to the Israeli Defense Forces, unless the administration, as many have, has waived it.”
Lawmakers say Thursday’s memorandum will strengthen the enforcement mechanisms.
“This will be the first time that we require recipients of U.S. military assistance to provide written assurances, promises, that they will comply with international humanitarian law,” Van Hollen said.
The Biden administration has staunchly backed Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas after the militant group killed 1,200 Israelis and took roughly 240 people hostage in a bloody, surprise rampage last Oct. 7.
As the conflict’s humanitarian conditions have deteriorated, however, Biden administration officials have pressed the Israeli government to limit the effect of its military operations on Gaza’s civilian population.
Speaking from Tel Aviv Wednesday at the end of his fifth, multi-stop sweep of the Middle East, Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a public appeal for greater protections for the people of Gaza.
“Israelis were dehumanized in the most horrific way on October 7th. The hostages have been dehumanized every day since,” Blinken said. “But that cannot be a license to dehumanize others.”
On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had ordered his military to submit plans for a civilian evacuation of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge, ahead of an expected offensive aimed at destroying Hamas battalions there.
Officials from the White House and State Department have warned that an attack on Rafah without a plan for protecting the civilians sheltering there would be a “disaster.” Blinken delivered a similar message directly to Netanyahu during their meeting in Jerusalem this week.
In a press conference Thursday, President Biden referred to Israel’s actions in Gaza as “over the top.”
Last month Van Hollen, returning from a visit to Rafah, told “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan that the president and secretary of state “had been right to insist on two things: a reduction in the unacceptable levels of civilian casualties, and much more cooperation when it comes to providing humanitarian assistance.”
“We’ve not seen that,” he said.
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Sen. Thom Tillis says “the scope” of Helene damage in North Carolina “is more like Katrina”
As recovery missions and repairs continue in North Carolina more than a week after Hurricane Helene carved a path of devastation through the western part of the state, the state’s Republican Sen. Thom Tillis called for more resources to bolster the relief effort and likened the damage to Hurricane Katrina’s mark on Louisiana in 2005.
“This is unlike anything that we’ve seen in this state,” Tillis told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday morning. “We need increased attention. We need to continue to increase the surge of federal resources.”
Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southeast U.S. after making landfall in Florida on Sept. 26 as a powerful Category 4 storm. Helene brought heavy rain and catastrophic flooding to communities across multiple states, including Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, with North Carolina bearing the brunt of the destruction. Officials previously said hundreds of roads in western North Carolina were washed out and inaccessible after the storm, hampering rescue operations, and several highways were blocked by mudslides.
Tillis said Sunday that most roads in the region likely remained closed due to flooding and debris. Water, electricity and other essential services still have not been fully restored.
“The scope of this storm is more like Katrina,” he said. “It may look like a flood to the outside observer, but again, this is a landmass roughly the size of the state of Massachusetts, with damage distributed throughout. We have to get maximum resources on the ground immediately to finish rescue operations.”
Hurricane Katrina left more than 1,000 people dead after it slammed into Louisiana’s Gulf Coast in August 2005, flooding neighborhoods and destroying infrastructure in and around New Orleans as well as in parts of the surrounding region. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. in the last 50 years, and the costliest storm on record.
The death toll from Hurricane Helene is at least 229, CBS News has confirmed, with at least 116 of those deaths reported in North Carolina alone. Officials have said they expect the death toll to continue to rise as recovery efforts were ongoing, and a spokesperson for the police department in Asheville told CBS News Friday their officers were “actively working 75 cases of missing persons.”
On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Transportation released $100 million in emergency funds for North Carolina to rebuild the roads and bridges damaged by the hurricane.
“We are providing this initial round of funding so there’s no delay getting roads repaired and reopened, and re-establishing critical routes,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “The Biden-Harris administration will be with North Carolina every step of the way, and today’s emergency funding to help get transportation networks back up and running safely will be followed by additional federal resources.”
President Biden previously announced that the federal government would cover “100%” of costs for debris removal and emergency protective measures in North Carolina for six months.
With North Carolina leaders working with a number of relief agencies to deal with the aftermath of the storm, Tillis urged federal officials to ramp up the resources being funneled into the state’s hardest-hit areas. The senator also addressed a surge in conspiracy theories and misinformation about the Biden Administration’s disaster response, which have been fueled by Republican political figures like former President Donald Trump.
Trump falsely claimed that Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the November presidential election, were diverting funds from Federal Emergency Management Agency that would support the relief effort in North Carolina toward initiatives for immigrants. He also said baselessly that the administration and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, were withholding funds because many communities that were hit hardest are predominantly Republican. Elon Musk has shared false claims about FEMA, too.
“Many of these observations are not even from people on the ground,” Tillis said of those claims. “I believe that we have to stay focused on rescue operations, recovery operations, clearing operations, and we don’t need any of these distractions on the ground. It’s at the expense of the hard-working first responders and people that are just trying to recover their lives.”
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