Senate urges halt to US support for Saudi war on Yemen in rebuke to Trump

The US Senate has once again rebuked President Donald Trump for his policy toward Riyadh by approving a resolution that would put an end to Washington’s support for the Saudi-led coalition in the devastating war it has waged on Yemen since 2015.

The Republican-led Senate passed the resolution on Wednesday by a 54 to 46 tally, seeking to halt any US military involvement in the conflict, including providing targeting support for Saudi airstrikes, without authorization from Congress.

Introduced by Senators Bernie Sanders, Mike Lee and Chris Murphy, the resolution will scale back the US role in and American military assistance for Saudi war on Yemen ahead of the fourth anniversary of the day when the Saudi-led coalition started its campaign against the impoverished nation.

The text now heads to the Democrat-led House of Representatives, which is expected to overwhelmingly pass the measure, possibly this month. 

Bernie Sanders, a co-sponsor of the text, has called the Saudi war on Yemen a humanitarian and strategic disaster.

PressTV-US weapons kill civilians in Yemen: Sanders

Senator Bernie Sanders blames Saudi Arabia for the humanitarian disaster in Yemen.

The resolution sets the foundation for what could become Trump’s first presidential veto, as White House advisers said earlier in the day that Trump would veto the resolution.

The Office of Management and Budget released a formal statement of administration policy that called the resolution "flawed" and suggested it could undermine the president's role as commander in chief. Advisers would suggest Trump veto the measure, the statement said.

The vote on the war powers resolution will be the second within four months in the Senate.

Supporters of the Yemen resolution have faced a long and grueling road to get the legislation onto the president’s desk. The Senate first passed the measure 56 to 41 in December, but then House Speaker Paul Ryan refused to take up the resolution.

Read more:

• US Senate votes to end US support for Saudi war on Yemen
• US Congress to end Trump support for Yemen war
• US House votes to halt aid for Saudi war on Yemen

His successor, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, did take it up, and the House easily passed it last month. But House Democrats inadvertently derailed the process by supporting a surprise procedural motion offered by Republicans to declare the chamber’s opposition to anti-Semitism. By attaching an unrelated amendment to the Yemen resolution, the House ended its “privileged” status, which would have forced the Senate to quickly take it up and send it to Trump.

The Wednesday resolution is a rare use of the 1973 War Powers Act, which gave Congress the ability to compel the removal of military forces absent a formal declaration of war. Those powers, created after the Vietnam War, have almost never been used, as lawmakers have demurred from intervening in politically delicate matters of war, peace and support for the troops.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the former Saudi-sponsored government back to power.

In its latest brutal attack on Yemeni civilians, the coalition’s warplanes on Monday killed twelve children and ten women in their airstrikes on the northern Yemeni province of Hajjah.

PressTV-Saudi warplanes kill nearly two dozen women in Yemen

Saudi warplanes reportedly targeted ambulances in the strikes.

Up to 30 people were reported wounded, including 14 children, several of whom "require possible evacuation to survive," the UN's humanitarian coordination office OCHA said in a statement.

According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.

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