The biggest arms dealer in the world--for decades running--has been the U.S. government. From 1996 to 2003, the U.S. supplied about 40 percent of the worldâ??s weapons each year. By comparison, Russia, the second biggest arms pusher, supplied about 15 percent.

During that period, the U.S. sold more than $100 billion worth of weapons--everything from small arms to land mines to ballistic missiles. The buyers were governments around the globe, through both direct Foreign Military Sales (direct sales by the U.S. government to various government) and Commercial Sales (sales by U.S. companies to foreign governments, with the approval of Washington).

For all of the Bush administrationâ??s rhetoric about fighting the â??war on terror,â?ť according to a recently released report from the World Policy Institute (WPI), some of the U.S. governmentâ??s largest customers are involved in active conflicts--sometimes with each other.

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