[Peace] Foreign Policy: Lawmakers Demand U.S. Withdrawal From Saudi-led War in Yemen

[Robert Naiman]

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http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/28/lawmakers-demand-u-s-wit
hdrawal-from-saudi-led-war-in-yemen/



Lawmakers Demand U.S. Withdrawal From Saudi-led War in Yemen

Bipartisan bill proposes halting military assistance to air war in Yemen
unless Congress votes on U.S. role.



BY DAN DE LUCE, SEPTEMBER 28, 2017



Four lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill that would halt U.S.
military assistance to the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen on grounds that
Congress has never approved the American role in the war.



Two House Republicans and two Democrats submitted the bill on Wednesday
evening, but other lawmakers have already conveyed their support for the
measure, congressional aides told Foreign Policy.



The bill requires “the removal” of U.S. forces from the war in Yemen unless
and until Congress votes to authorize the American assistance. For more
than two years, the United States military has provided aerial refueling
tankers and intelligence to the Saudi-led coalition waging war against
Houthi rebels backed by Iran.



“We aim to restore Congress as the constitutionally mandated branch of
government that may declare war and retain oversight over it,” two
sponsors, Democrats Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Rep. Mark Pocan of
Wisconsin, wrote in a letter to colleagues, obtained by FP.



Although the bipartisan bill is unlikely to secure a majority in the House,
it underscores growing concerns over Saudi Arabia’s handling of the war
that is now at a stalemate on the battlefield. And it reflects growing
unease at Congress over the U.S. role there, following previous attempts by
lawmakers this year to rein in arms sales or other military assistance to
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their Gulf partners backing the
Yemeni government.



Both Republicans and Democrats have accused the Gulf coalition of delaying
or blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemen and criticized the
Saudi-led states for bombing raids that have hit schools and hospitals and
killed and wounded large numbers of civilians. As a result of the war, more
than seven million people are on the verge of starvation in Yemen, U.N.
officials say, and the country faces an unprecedented cholera outbreak that
has spread at an alarming rate in only seven months.



“It’s beyond time for the country to stop conducting refueling for missions
over Yemen,” Khanna, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told
FP in an email.



“Congress and the American people know too little about the role we are
playing in a war that is causing suffering for millions of people and is a
genuine threat to our national security,” he said.



The two Republican co-sponsors of the bill, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky
and Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina, are both conservatives who have
called for upholding Congress’ constitutional authority to declare war.



Pocan, the Wisconsin Democrat, said it was time for Congress to end the
U.S. role in “this senseless, unauthorized conflict. “



The authors of the bill also argued that assistance to the coalition
bombing in Yemen was harming U.S. security interests, by creating
conditions that enabled al Qaeda and Islamic State to bolster their
presence in the country.



The proposed legislation will help “in reducing a genuine threat to
national security posed by the expansion of Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula, and promises to assist in ending the senseless suffering of
millions of innocent people in Yemen,” according to the text of the bill.



The bill cites a 2016 State Department report on terrorism in Yemen, which
found that al Qaeda and Islamic State militants have benefited from the
country’s “security vacuum” and exploited sectarian tensions between the
Sunni Yemeni government and the Shiite Houthi rebels.



The bill does not seek to end U.S. counterterrorism operations — including
drone strikes — against al Qaeda or Islamic State branches in Yemen, which
date back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and
Washington.



The Saudi-led coalition launched its air war in Yemen in March 2015 after
Houthi rebels backed by Tehran ousted the government led by president Abed
Rabbo Mansour Hadi.



Anxious over its image, Saudi Arabia has invested in an extensive public
relations effort in Washington to counter criticism of the air war in Yemen
and its obstruction of humanitarian aid deliveries to Sanaa airport and the
country’s main port in Hodeida.



Riyadh has argued that it had to intervene to defend itself against
Iranian-backed and armed Houthi rebels who have fired rockets across its
border. And it accuses Houthi forces of diverting aid from the Hodeida
port, though international relief organizations have not confirmed those
allegations.



The Saudi-led coalition has come under intense scrutiny in Congress over
its refusal since January to permit the delivery of four cranes financed by
the U.S. Agency for International Development to the port of Hodeida. The
World Food Programme and other aid groups say the cranes are crucial for
unloading emergency food and medical supplies from ships arriving at the
port amid a mounting humanitarian catastrophe.



The blockade on the cranes violates international law and the Geneva
Conventions, human rights groups say. And by continuing to provide military
assistance to the coalition, the United States could be violating U.S. law,
according to a legal opinion from the American Bar Association’s Center for
Human Rights.



The Foreign Assistance Act prohibits aid to governments that directly or
indirectly block the transport of U.S. humanitarian assistance, unless the
president certifies to Congress that it is in the security interests of the
United States, it said.



===

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1 <(202)%20448-2898>

House: Use War Powers to Save A Million Yemeni Kids from Cholera & Famine
https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/force-vote-on-saudi-war?r_by=1135580
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