WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement on Thursday after the U.S. House of Representatives successfully passed a resolution offered by Murphy, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) to end U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen pursuant to the War Powers Act. The resolution passed the House by a vote of 247 to 175 and will now go to President Trump’s desk. This is the first time since the War Powers Act became law in 1973 that both houses of Congress passed a War Powers Act resolution.
“I’ve been waiting years for this day to come. For four years now, I‘ve been calling for the United States to stop selling offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia and withdraw U.S. troops from this humanitarian crisis and disastrous war in Yemen. Today, Democrats and Republicans in Congress sent a powerful message to the Saudi government – they can no longer take their alliance with the United States for granted, and we will not stand idly by while the Saudi’s continue to kill thousands of civilians in our name. Now that this resolution is headed to the president’s desk, I hope he realizes the momentum to get out of this war is only growing stronger,” said Murphy.
Since the beginning of this conflict in 2015, Murphy has been a vocal critic of the United States’ support for the Saudi-led civil war in Yemen, and has called on his colleagues to pass legislation to end U.S. military involvement. The conflict has led to devastating humanitarian consequences and a security vacuum that has empowered terrorist groups, like ISIS and al Qaeda, to grow stronger in the region. Murphy has repeatedly expressed concern that U.S. participation in Saudi Arabia’s military actions against Houthi rebels in Yemen threatens our own national security interests. As a result of U.S. involvement assisting Saudi Arabia, we are potentially radicalizing young Yemenis against America and assisting in the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Yemeni citizens.
Last year, Murphy renewed his call to cease support for the Saudi-led campaign following a United Nations report that found continued human rights violations. After the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Turkey in October, Murphy reiterated his call for the suspension of military support for the Saudi-led campaign. He echoed his call in an op-ed in the Washington Post. Murphy, Sanders and Lee reintroduced their resolution in January.
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