Click here to view video of Murphy’s remarks.

WASHINGTON — During a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Tuesday, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) questioned Trump administration officials about the United States’ continued support for Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen. Specifically, Murphy asked U.S. Department of State Acting Assistant Secretary of Near Eastern Affairs David Satterfield and U.S. Agency for International Development Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance Robert Jenkins about the status of humanitarian relief efforts and democratic negotiations to end the civil war. Murphy has been a vocal critic of U.S. support for military campaigns in Yemen that have led to devastating humanitarian consequences and a security vacuum that has empowered terrorist groups. 

Murphy said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different set of results. And I feel like that’s where we are, [three] years into a conflict in which nothing has changed except for the worse. The Houthis control effectively the same amount of the country that they did at the outset. The humanitarian nightmare has gotten even worse. And yet we are still sitting here today, talking about a peace process blossoming out of a reality on the ground that does not look very different than it did a year or two years ago…”

Murphy continued, “Mr. Jenkins, we are comparing the current state of humanitarian relief to a moment in time last fall when virtually no relief was getting through. That is not the proper comparison, or at least a useful comparison … Why do the Saudis need to continue to look at every ship that comes in, chilling the interest in humanitarian supplies, adding additional time, when we have a UN process that so far has shown no evidence of not actually being able to conduct these inspections?”

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. Last month, Murphy introduced a bipartisan resolution with U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) to end unauthorized U.S. military involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. Murphy introduced similar legislation last year.

The full text of Murphy’s exchange is below:

Murphy: “Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

“Admitting that you made a mistake is a very difficult thing. America’s biggest foreign policy mistakes come when we make a decision for military engagement and then we don’t allow for facts on the ground to educate us about a mistake that we have made. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different set of results. And I feel like that’s where we are, [three] years into a conflict in which nothing has changed except for the worse. The Houthis control effectively the same amount of the country that they did at the outset. The humanitarian nightmare has gotten even worse. And yet we are still sitting here today, talking about a peace process blossoming out of a reality on the ground that does not look very different than it did a year or two years ago. 

“And so, Mr. Satterfield, let me pose this theory of the case to you. I have great respect for you, but I really do think that this impression that you’re giving the committee that the Iranians don’t want to come to the table and the Saudis and the Emirates do, is spin. Because the reason that we are asking you questions about reports of an assault on Hudaydah, is that the Saudis have made it pretty clear to everyone that’s asked them that they are not going to come to the table until the military battle lines on the ground inside Yemen change, and that until they get the Houthis back on their heels, militarily, they aren’t going to come to the negotiating table. And yet, you’re telling us that you think the Saudis are going to engage even if, after [three] years of trying to get the battle lines to be different, they have no success.

“So why are the Saudis going to come to the table today if, for [three] years, they have been trying to move the battle lines without success? The reason we’re asking you these questions about Hudaydah is that they’ve communicated to us that they are planning an assault on Hudaydah as a means of trying to change the dynamics in anticipation of a negotiation.”

Mr. David Satterfield: “Senator, the last three years that this conflict has endured have not just shown a status quo. It’s been a worsening of the situation with respect to the military picture. The posture of the Houthis is strengthened today in comparison to what it was three years ago. The presence of opposing non-Houthi forces – Ali Abdullah Saleh, the General People’s Congress – is significantly more diminished or fragmented. The presence of other elements – Islah, other actors, Ali Mohsen – in this conflict have less influence to bring to bear. Now that may appear to be more of a chaotic mix and thus more difficult to bring to a resolution. Perhaps out of some sense of optimism I choose to see it differently. It is a situation in which the hope that somehow military force alone could compel the Houthis as a unique party to come to the table on reduced terms, is illusory. And we use exactly those terms with Saudi--” 

Murphy: “--But that has been the Saudi position for the last [three] years, that continued military pressure, an average of fifteen airstrikes a day for three years consecutive, is going to bring the Houthis to the table. That has been the theory of the case from the Saudi coalition’s perspective, correct?”

Satterfield: “And we have been – it is the Saudi position that military force needs to be continued to apply. Our response to the Saudis at the highest levels has been that application of force has not been and is not predictably likely to be successful in achieving that political aim.”

Murphy: “And we have been unsuccessful in changing their minds for [three] years and we expect things to change.

Mr. Jenkins, we are comparing the current state of humanitarian relief to a moment in time last fall when virtually no relief was getting through. That is not the proper comparison, or at least a useful comparison. Let me just quote from a recent UN report that suggests that today, half as many vessels are getting into Hudaydah and Salif as before the blockade, and that on average, the Saudi inspection process is adding 100 days to relief supplies getting into these ports, despite the fact that we have a UN verification process that’s taking a look at these ships as well.

Why do the Saudis need to continue to look at every ship that comes in, chilling the interest in humanitarian supplies, adding additional time, when we have a UN process that so far has shown no evidence of not actually being able to conduct these inspections?” 

Mr. Robert Jenkins: “Senator it is true that throughput at the port of Hudaydah has not yet gotten back to the level we saw before the October-November enclosure. And there has been a very chilling effect on shippers, particularly shippers using containerized vessels who don’t want to take the risk of going to Hudaydah, and also because they don’t know how long it’ll go through clearance. 

However, we’ve been working very carefully – the State Department, USAID, other donors – with the coalition to reduce the times that the EHAOC process, that’s the coalition’s Evacuation Humanitarian Assistance Operations Cell. In the month of April third, we got that down to about three to four days. So it’s not a hundred days. There’s been a lot of work done getting the communication between that process and the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM) process together. The UN system, UNVIM, gets back within 48 hours on the determination of whether or not a vessel actually needs to be searched or not, and then it goes through the EHAOC process. We have seen, particularly in the last six weeks, significant progress on that, and we’re looking forward to reducing those times even more. 

What we do need is we need shippers in the region to know how long it will take, and that will hopefully get more shipping back into Hudaydah port, particularly compartmentalized cargo.”

Murphy: “Thank you.”

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