The U.S. Department of Defense has come under fire from a bipartisan group in Congress over military contracts with Russia’s state-owned arms dealer. Since 2011 the Pentagon has signed three contracts with Rosoboronexport totaling $1.12 billion. The contracts are for 63 Mi-17 helicopters and related equipment to be used by the Afghan National Security Forces. Congress has now passed two amendments aimed at curbing future contracts, citing Rosoboronexport’s arms shipments to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in the Syrian civil war.
Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut wrote both amendments.
“We are purchasing helicopters from an arms dealer that in fact is supplying Syria, where we have seen over 70 or 90,000 people who have been killed,” DeLauro said Sunday on Weekends with Alex Witt.
The first amendment was attached to the FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act. It banned contracts with Rosoboronexport unless they were in the interest of either the public or national security. After President Obama signed that bill into law, the Defense Department entered into another contract, worth $572 million, using funds allocated to the previous year. Those funds were not restricted by the new law. In response, Congress passed another amendment last month in a vote of 423-0. That measure prohibits future business with the Russian arms dealer unless the firm undergoes a Defense Department audit, stops supplying missile defense batteries to Syria, and proves that it has not signed any new contracts with the Assad government.
A Defense Department spokesperson told msnbc that the Pentagon will comply with any new amendments that are signed by the President.








