Biden seeks to expand Israeli access to US weapons stockpile

Al Jazeera :
The White House aims to lift nearly all restrictions on Israel’s access to weapons from a crucial US stockpile, enabling a smoother weapons pipeline to Israel, which has paused weeks of its devastating bombing of the Gaza Strip.

The White House asked the United States Senate to scrap the restrictions in its latest supplementary budget request on October 20.

If granted, the request would enable Israel to access more high-powered US weapons at a reduced cost, with less congressional oversight.

The request proposes changes to policies governing
the War Reserve Stockpile Allies-Israel (WRSA-I), an Israel-based US weapons stockpile that has smart bombs, missiles, military vehicles, and other ammunition and equipment.

The stockpile, set up in the 1980s, gives the Pentagon a strong weapons cache to tap into in the event of regional conflicts.

Israel, the US’s principal ally in the Middle East, has also been able to pull some weapons from the reserve in emergency cases and buy them at a reduced cost.

However, it has been able to access only certain classes of weapons deemed “obsolete or surplus”.

The White House’s request would eliminate such conditions, enabling the US to transfer all “defence articles” from its stockpile to Israel.

It would also waive a yearly limit on the amount Washington spends refilling the cache, and curb congressional oversight on the transfers.