House moves to sever U.S. ties to Yemen war

Partnership with Saudi Arabia at issue

WASHINGTON — Asserting congressional authority over war-making powers, the House voted Wednesday to end U.S. military assistance for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, in a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s alliance with the Saudi-led coalition behind the military intervention.

Lawmakers in both parties have become increasingly uneasy over the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and skeptical of the U.S. partnership with the coalition, especially in light of Saudi Arabia’s role in the October killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the royal family.

The 248-177 vote, condemning the nearly 4-yearold conflict in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians and inflicted a devastating famine, will pressure the Republican-controlled Senate to respond. Eighteen Republicans voted with the Democratic majority. All four members of Arkansas’ delegation voted against the resolution.

Congress’ upper chamber in December approved a parallel resolution, in a 56-41 vote, in a rebuke of the president and his administration’s defense of the kingdom. But that measure died with the previous Congress after the House Republican leadership blocked a vote.

Before the House resolution’s approval, dozens of Democrats softened the blow when they supported

a Republican amendment to allow intelligence sharing with Saudi Arabia to continue when “appropriate in the national security interest of the United States.”

The United States is one of several countries backing Saudi forces, which entered Yemen’s long-running civil war in 2015, in seeking to oust the Houthi rebels. The Houthis are sponsored to an extent by Iran, Saudi Arabia’s chief regional competitor.

Republican opponents of the Yemen resolution argued that by focusing solely on ending U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s campaign, the resolution “sends a green light to the Houthis and their Iranian backers to press on,” as House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Mike McCaul, R-Texas, put it.

Democrats objected to Republicans characterizing the resolution as soft on Iran, stressing that its chief motivation was to address the humanitarian crisis in Yemen caused by Saudi Arabia’s efforts to block aid from reaching those in need.

“We can go after Iran another time, and heaven knows I’ve been the sponsor of many resolutions and bills sanctioning Iran,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y. “There is a civil war going on now in Yemen, and innocent children are dying. We have an ability to put an end to that, and that’s what we should do with this humanitarian crisis. It’s critical that we don’t delay.”

Engel said the vote represents “Congress reclaiming its role in foreign policy.”

Senate approval of the Yemen resolution could prompt Trump to issue the first veto of his presidency. Republicans have registered their unhappiness over other foreign policy issues, such as the president’s plan to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan and his threats to pull the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced new sanctions on Russia that would require the secretary of state to submit a determination of “whether the Russian Federation meets the criteria for designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.”

Democrats demanded Senate action on the Yemen resolution.

“This is their opportunity to send a message to the Saudis that their behavior on Khashoggi and their flagrant disregard of human rights is not consistent with the American way of doing business and not in line with American values,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., the measure’s lead sponsor, said in an interview, adding that he was “relieved” the House finally took action on the resolution, which he first introduced in 2017.

The White House over the weekend pre-emptively threatened to block the resolution, with officials arguing in a statement of administration policy that “the premise of the joint resolution is flawed” because the United States has provided only “limited support to member countries of the Saudi-led coalition” in Yemen.

Senate aides involved in the resolution say they are optimistic it will be approved, though it is unclear whether it will garner the same level of support among Republicans that it did in December. Some Republicans, mindful of a veto showdown with Trump, are looking for other ways to show their dissatisfaction.

Members of Congress expressed renewed anger last weekend after the White House declined on Friday to meet a legally mandated deadline to report whether the administration believed Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was personally responsible for Khashoggi’s death, as the CIA has concluded.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told reporters Tuesday that “the sooner the White House gets there, the better,” adding: “I don’t know what’s taking so long. I think it’s pretty obvious the crown prince had to be involved in this.”

Trump did find a vote of confidence from Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, the new chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who has cooled what was once a hotbed of dissent over the Trump administration’s foreign policies. Risch broke from his colleagues to express satisfaction at the administration’s response, telling reporters Tuesday that “the administration has been very forthcoming; the State Department has been very forthcoming.”

Indignation at the administration’s response to the killing led seven Senate Republicans to break with their party in December and back a Yemen resolution drafted by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

This time around, with the Democrats controlling the House, some of those dissenters are seeking ways to hold the Saudi government accountable without invoking the War Powers Act. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., introduced legislation last week that would impose broader sanctions on the Saudi government, including a ban on American refueling of Saudi coalition aircraft in Yemen, without calling for a removal of military support.

Some senators frustrated with the administration’s response have refused to back the resolution, arguing that the invocation of the War Powers Act must be evaluated independently from their discontent with the White House.

“I think that’s separate — it has to be, from a point of pragmatism — from Mr. Khashoggi and his murder,” Rubio, who does not plan to support the measure, said Tuesday.

Among other things, the War Powers Act says presidents may unilaterally deploy troops into combat situations only if the United States has been attacked, and it created a mechanism for Congress to direct a deployment’s immediate termination. The House measure says U.S. military assistance to the Saudi-led coalition counts as a deployment into unauthorized hostilities under the War Powers Act and must end.

Unlike many recent disputes over presidential war powers — such as the legal basis for the Barack Obama and Trump administrations’ war against the Islamic State — the current debate does not turn on how far the executive branch may stretch the 2001 and 2002 authorizations to use military force against al-Qaida and Iraq. The Houthi rebel forces in Yemen have no connection to those two conflicts.

The Trump administration, however, has said that it can rely on congressional authority from other statutes, including one that permits the Pentagon to provide logistical assistance to allies, as a basis for its help to the Saudi-led coalition.

The White House also argues that the assistance the United States is providing — intelligence sharing for targeting purposes, logistics support and, until recently, aerial refueling — falls short of a deployment into the sort of hostilities covered by the War Powers Act.

The White House has suggested it could be an unconstitutional encroachment on Trump’s powers as commander in chief for Congress to override his judgment and try to terminate the mission.