US bypasses Congress to rush bomb sale to Israel as Iran war escalates

In a statement issued late on Friday, the State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had concluded that an emergency existed, allowing Washington to waive the standard requirement for Congress to review the proposed deal before it moved forward.

The package includes more than 20,000 bombs and was cleared as the United States and Israel entered the second week of their joint military campaign against Iran.

The proposed sale includes 12,000 BLU-110A/B 1,000-pound general-purpose bomb bodies that Israel had requested.

A State Department official said on Saturday that the package also covers BLU-111 500-pound general-purpose bombs through an amendment to an earlier sale.

In addition, the official said Israel would purchase another US$298 million in critical munitions through direct commercial sales.

The principal contractor for the latest package is Repkon USA, based in Texas.

Washington said the transfer would support US foreign policy and national security objectives.

The approval comes as the United States describes its joint operation with Israel as an effort to destroy Iran’s offensive missile capability, missile production infrastructure and naval assets.

The campaign has already become Washington’s largest military operation since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has heightened fears that the conflict could spill into a wider regional war.

Those concerns have grown as Tehran has retaliated with attacks on Israel and on countries in the region that host US military bases.

According to Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, at least 1,332 Iranian civilians have been killed over the past week in US and Israeli strikes, while thousands more have been injured.

The ambassador also said several senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed.

The US military has separately said that six American service members were killed in a strike on a facility in Kuwait, while Israel says at least 10 civilians have been killed on its side so far.

The decision to use emergency authority drew immediate political criticism in Washington.

Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks said the administration’s move to sidestep congressional scrutiny undercut its own insistence that it had been fully prepared for war with Iran.

In his view, the rushed use of emergency powers suggested the White House was dealing with a crisis of its own making rather than executing a well-prepared strategy.

The sale is also likely to deepen scrutiny of how US-supplied munitions are used by Israel.

In a report published in December 2024, the United Nations said the Israeli military had likely used heavy bombs and similar munitions in densely populated areas of Gaza during its campaign against Hamas, a war that has killed tens of thousands of civilians.

US military support for Israel has remained strong under both President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden throughout the wars involving Gaza, Lebanon and now Iran.

Both administrations have previously used emergency procedures or similar mechanisms to move arms sales forward without going through the full congressional review process.

That support has faced sustained criticism from human rights experts, particularly over Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has triggered mass displacement, a severe hunger crisis and allegations of genocide from some scholars as well as a UN inquiry.

Israel rejects those accusations and says its actions amount to self-defence following the Hamas-led attack in October 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed, and more than 250 hostages were taken.

Reuters