Congress clears key hurdle in ending support for war in Yemen
In an unprecedented move, the Senate has cleared a key procedural hurdle that paves the way to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition’s intervention in Yemen.
Congress held a rare vote to curtail US military involvement in Yemen today in a direct, bipartisan rebuke of the Trump administration’s refusal to crack down on Saudi Arabia.
Clearing a key procedural hurdle, the Senate voted 63-37 to move ahead with legislation directing President Donald Trump to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Today’s vote marks the first time the Senate has used the 1973 War Powers Act to direct a president to end a foreign military intervention.
“It is imperative today that the United States Senate tells Saudi Arabia and tells the world that we are not going to be continuing to be part of that humanitarian catastrophe,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the resolution’s sponsor, told reporters ahead of the vote. “We are ending our participation in that horrific war and we are going to do everything that we can to force the Saudis and the Houthis to the peace table and to provide the desperately needed humanitarian aid that the Yemenis want.”
Sanders had tried to secure the same vote in March, but unlike today, it failed to clear the necessary procedural hurdle 55-44.
