Saudi Arabia Launches Yemen Intervention Armed with Billions in Raytheon Weapons, Beginning Eight-Year Atrocity

On March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia launched military intervention in Yemen’s civil war, beginning an eight-year bombing campaign that would kill over 19,000 civilians and create what the UN characterized as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The Saudi-led coalition initiated operations armed with billions of dollars in US weapons systems, with Raytheon serving as a primary supplier of the precision-guided munitions, Patriot missile defenses, and radar systems that would enable thousands of airstrikes. The Obama administration provided extensive support including intelligence sharing, aerial refueling, and expedited weapons transfers, with US defense contractors including Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing collectively earning tens of billions from Saudi contracts during the war. Over the following eight years, human rights organizations would document at least 21 apparently unlawful coalition attacks involving US-manufactured weapons, with Raytheon Paveway bombs specifically identified in attacks on funerals, weddings, hospitals, school buses, and civilian infrastructure that killed thousands.

Raytheon as Primary Saudi Weapons Supplier

At the start of Yemen operations, Saudi Arabia possessed massive stockpiles of Raytheon weapons systems purchased over decades of US-Saudi military cooperation. The kingdom’s arsenal included thousands of Raytheon Paveway precision-guided munitions, multiple battalions of Patriot missile defense systems (approximately $15 billion in total purchases), advanced radar systems, and extensive maintenance and training contracts. Raytheon had cultivated the Saudi relationship as one of its most lucrative foreign markets, with the kingdom representing approximately 5% of the company’s total annual revenue. The precision-guided Paveway systems—marketed by Raytheon as technology that reduced civilian casualties through improved accuracy—would become the weapon most frequently documented in civilian-casualty incidents, as the systems’ precision enabled deliberate targeting of civilian gatherings, protected infrastructure, and first responders. Saudi Arabia’s dependence on Raytheon for munitions, spare parts, training, and technical support created leverage that could theoretically have been used to constrain coalition conduct, but US administrations across Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies consistently chose to preserve the arms relationship rather than exercise that leverage to protect civilians.

Obama Administration Support and Complicity

The Obama administration enthusiastically supported the Saudi intervention, viewing it as opportunity to reinforce US-Saudi strategic partnership and counter Iranian influence in Yemen. The US provided intelligence support to coalition targeting operations, aerial refueling that extended coalition aircraft range and payload, expedited arms transfers including Raytheon munitions, and diplomatic cover at the United Nations. This support made the United States complicit in coalition operations from the intervention’s inception, with US intelligence and logistics directly enabling bombing campaigns that would kill thousands of civilians. The Obama administration approved billions in additional weapons sales to Saudi Arabia during 2015-2016 even as human rights organizations began documenting civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes. The administration maintained that US support provided leverage to improve Saudi targeting practices and protect civilians, yet civilian casualties escalated throughout Obama’s presidency. The administration’s support established patterns that would continue through Trump and Biden presidencies: defense contractor lobbying and strategic interests consistently overrode humanitarian concerns, with each new atrocity prompting promises to improve Saudi conduct rather than suspending weapons flows or support.

Eight-Year Toll and US Weapons Documentation

By the time major combat operations wound down in 2022-2023, the Saudi-led coalition had conducted over 25,000 airstrikes in Yemen, causing more than 19,000 civilian casualties according to conservative estimates. The UN estimated the war killed 377,000 people through direct and indirect causes by end of 2021. Human Rights Watch documented at least 21 apparently unlawful attacks involving US-manufactured weapons, with Raytheon systems identified in many of the most notorious incidents. These included: the September 2016 water drilling site attack (31 killed, Raytheon Paveway), October 2016 funeral hall massacre (155 killed, US-made munitions), August 2016 MSF hospital strike (11 killed, Raytheon Paveway), April 2018 wedding bombing (23 killed, Raytheon/Lockheed Paveway), August 2018 school bus massacre (40 children killed, Lockheed bomb), June 2019 village attack (6 killed including 3 children, Raytheon GBU-12), and January 2022 detention center bombing (80 killed, Raytheon Paveway). These documented incidents represented a fraction of total civilian casualties from US weapons, as most strikes were never independently investigated and weapon remnants were not always recoverable or identifiable.

Significance

The March 26, 2015 launch of Saudi Arabia’s Yemen intervention marked the beginning of an eight-year case study in how US defense contractors profit from enabling systematic war crimes while maintaining political protection from accountability. Raytheon emerged as the primary US weapons supplier whose systems were documented in the greatest number of civilian-casualty incidents, with the company’s Paveway precision-guided bombs identified in attacks spanning hospitals, funerals, weddings, school buses, and detention centers that killed thousands of Yemeni civilians. The intervention demonstrated the moral economy of the military-industrial complex in operation: Raytheon and other contractors earned tens of billions from Saudi weapons sales over eight years, faced no legal accountability for documented use of their weapons in war crimes, successfully lobbied three successive US administrations to maintain arms flows despite mounting atrocity evidence, and used revolving door personnel (including future Defense Secretary Mark Esper) to capture policy processes. The war revealed that precision-guided weapons marketed as reducing civilian harm actually enabled war crimes by providing accuracy to deliberately target civilian gatherings while maintaining plausible deniability. Yemen became the longest sustained period of documented US weapons being used in systematic violations of international humanitarian law, yet this documentation produced only temporary, selective restrictions on specific weapons categories while leaving intact the broader arms relationships that enabled ongoing atrocities. For Raytheon specifically, Yemen validated that the company’s weapons could kill thousands of civilians including children across three presidential administrations without meaningful accountability—congressional investigations produced hearings but not permanent arms restrictions, human rights documentation generated negative press but not legal liability, and executive branch officials prioritized contractor revenues and strategic relationships over humanitarian concerns. The Yemen intervention demonstrated Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex had proven prophetic: defense contractors had captured sufficient political power to continue profiting from weapons documented in war crimes spanning eight years and three US administrations, with accountability limited to temporary sales pauses that left contractor profitability fundamentally intact while Yemeni civilians continued dying from US weapons.