US backing of Saudi use of cluster bombs very despicable: Analyst

The US State Department’s comments indirectly backing the use of cluster bombs by Saudi forces in Yemen are “very despicable,” a geopolitical commentator in Missouri says.

Dean Henderson, an author and columnist at Veterans Today, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Sunday while commenting on a report which says the United States is providing a “thinly-veiled cover” for the use of cluster bombs by Saudi Arabia and its allies in their military aggression against Yemen.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said that cluster bombs were “permissible” as legitimate weapons of war if “used appropriately,” according to The Inter Press Service.

“If used appropriately, there are end-use regulations regarding the use of them. But yes, when used appropriately and according (to) those end-use rules, it’s permissible,” he told reporters earlier this week.

“These comments by Kirby, the State Department, are very despicable,” Henderson said.

The analyst stated the defense of the use of “cluster bombs in any situation is very bad.”

“The bigger picture the US again is covertly backing the Saudis. Their advisers are doubled, 45 advisers now. They are based in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia,” he pointed out.

Henderson added that the United States actually built up the Saudi kingdom. “And the US pretty much ran airbases, and ran CAC system, the Command and Control system that mattered. So it’s all in place.”

“By the way, most of Saudi Air Force jets are not piloted by the Saudis, they are piloted by Pakistanis, because the US would not trust even the Saudi citizens to fly these planes, because they know that they hate the House of Saud so bad that they have to bring in mercenary pilots to fly those Saudi Ari Force planes,” he noted.     

“That’s how popular the House of Saud is in Saudi Arabia, the single family monarchy that rules this country,” the American journalist further said.

“You know 4,000 people in Yemen dead and cluster bombs and that’s OK. And it’s just disgrace that Kirby is saying these things in front of TV cameras. Unbelievable really!”

In August 2013, the US Department of Defense agreed to provide Riyadh with 1,300 CBU-105 cluster bombs manufactured by Textron.

The United States has more than doubled the number of its military staff “providing intelligence, munitions and midair refueling” for Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes on Yemen.

The number of so-called American advisers working at joint military operations centers in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain has risen from 20 to 45, according to The Los Angeles Times.

In addition, US warships have also helped enforce a naval blockade in the Gulf of Aden and southern Arabian Sea.

The Saudi onslaught has claimed more than 4,300 lives and forced more than 1.3 million others from their homes since March, according to United Nations agencies.

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