Trump blows off congressionally mandated Yemen certification

The Donald Trump administration won’t certify to Congress that the Saudi-led force fighting in Yemen is attempting to reduce civilian deaths in the conflict, Al-Monitor has learned, a move that would bar the Pentagon from resuming refueling to the coalition.

The decision, which had been due Feb. 9, is required by last year’s defense authorization bill but does not prevent the Pentagon from providing intelligence to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The State Department first certified that the Saudi-led coalition had made a “good faith effort” to reduce civilian casualties in the four-year conflict in September in order to continue refueling. The move angered Congress just a month after a US-supplied bomb struck a Yemeni school bus far from the battlefield, killing 40 children.

“They halted refueling in 2018 in vain attempt to deflect support from war powers in the Senate. It didn’t work,” a former US official told Al-Monitor. “They can read the writing on the wall. Submit this certification again, and Congress will take you to the woodshed.”