A key House panel on Wednesday moved to block any U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, in the first move by the new House Democratic majority to challenge President Trump’s close alliance with Riyadh.
On a party-line vote, Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution Wednesday 25-17 effectively calling for the end of all U.S. support for the Saudis in the war with Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a conflict observers say has produced massive civilian casualties, displaced 3 million Yemenis and sparked what the aid groups call the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
Invoking the War Powers Act, the committee resolution directs the president to withdraw U.S. forces in or affecting hostilities Yemen in a month, unless they are fighting al Qaeda or other recognized terror groups.
“Neither the threats facing the Saudis nor America’s partnership with the kingdom mean that the Saudis should have a blank check,” said new committee Chairman Eliot Engel, New York Democrat. “We cannot look the other way when it comes to the recklessness with which the Saudi-led coalition has conducted its operations.”
The vote could signal a real challenge to the administration’s Middle East policy, which has made a closer alliance with Riyadh a centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s regional strategy. Acting in the wake of the killing of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Republican-controlled Senate in the final days of the previous Congress last year approved a similar measure with a large bipartisan majority amid sharp criticism of de facto Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Starting under the Obama administration in 2015, the Pentagon has provided logistical, targeting and intelligence support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. The nearly four-year-long war has killed over 50,000 civilians.
Many Republican members on the committee criticized the way the resolution was crafted, saying the Democratic majority was trying to dictate foreign policy to the president in a conflict in which U.S. troops are not directly involved.
“With all due respect I would beg you to vote against this bill,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger said during the bill’s mark-up.
“This is our very first committee action and we’re getting ready to take an action that is going to have detrimental consequences without really thinking it through,” the Illinois Republican warned.
Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the committee’s ranking Republican, called the resolution an “ill-advised bill.”
“I am alarmed that we are abusing a privileged War Powers procedure to address questions where U.S. forces are not involved in combat,” he said.
But Democrats said the brutal, indiscriminate nature of the Saudi-led offensive was hurting U.S. interests and America’s reputation in the region and around the world.
Rep. Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat and former assistant secretary of state for democracy in the Obama administration, argued the U.S. is “deeply embedded in the Saudi conflict … in a way we are not in the various partnership relationships we have in Africa or in the Middle East.”
“I think the standard we are setting here for defining engagement in active hostilities is in fact very high,” he added.
The international rights group Amnesty International on Wednesday issued an immediate call to the U.S. and Western governments to stop supplying weapons for the factions fighting in Yemen, citing recent reports that many of the arms have wound up in the possession of al Qaeda and other terror groups.
• Lauren Toms can be reached at lmeier@washingtontimes.com.
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