Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act--

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank Senator Sanders and Senator Lee for allowing me to step in and say a few words before we have a short colloquy about the resolution we are bringing to the floor.

I brought this picture to the floor before, and I hesitate to keep it up for more than a few moments. It is very disturbing to look at, but this is the reality of Yemen today. This is the reality of a country in which thousands and thousands of civilians have been killed by a bombing campaign that the United States is facilitating--facilitating with intelligence sharing, facilitating with targeting assistance, facilitating with midair refueling, facilitating with the sale of munitions that end up being dropped on the homes of families like this.

This, as has been stated, is perhaps the worst cholera outbreak in modern history. Let's talk about why that happens.

Why are over 1 million people in Yemen today suffering from cholera, a disease that is entirely 100 percent preventable? The reason is that the water treatment facilities inside Yemen have been bombed, have been rendered useless such that there is no means by which they can keep the water that these young children drink clean. Bombs sold to the Saudi coalition by the United States, bombs dropped from planes refueled by the U.S. Air Force, bombs that are directed via targeting centers in which U.S. personnel are embedded hit water treatment facilities inside Yemen, and there is now the worst cholera outbreak in our lifetime.

I cannot do a better job than Senator Lee did of explaining to the body why we believe it is so important for Congress to exercise our Article I responsibility to declare war. He laid it out better than I can. The Founding Fathers believed, as he said, that when there were matters of great import to the national security of this country, when there were decisions that the Executive was making with respect to hostilities with other nations that included serious consequences for the United States and the world, that should not be simply an Executive function. Very specifically, as Senator Lee said, that power of declaring war, of entering into hostilities against another nation, is housed here in the Congress. So it is relevant to talk about what is happening in Yemen today. What is the degree of the hostilities, and does it come with serious national security concerns for the United States of America, for the constituents we represent?

We are absolutely engaged in hostilities today. There is no way that what we see in these charts could not be categorized as hostilities. The bombs that ruined this entire neighborhood are made in the United States, are dropped by planes refueled by the United States, are directed by a targeting center that involves U.S. personnel. This is clearly an act of hostility that the United States, in partnership with the Saudi coalition, has entered into against the Yemeni people.

Remember, this is a civil war inside Yemen. There are not-so-good people on both sides of this civil war. The Houthis have been responsible for major, catastrophic acts in the country, just as the coalition has, but we are only on one side of that, so it makes sense for us to focus on the hostilities that have been entered into by the United States and the Saudi coalition. But let's for a second talk about the other implications for U.S. national security.

What has happened inside Yemen as this civil war has persisted? Al- Qaida and ISIS have grown in strength. For a period of time, AQAP--the arm of al-Qaida inside Yemen that has the most direct intention to hit the United States--had captured a major port inside Yemen and was drawing substantial revenue, allowing them to become stronger than ever before. By continuing to feed weapons into this civil war, the United States is helping to expand the reach and the power of the two entities inside Yemen that the administration argues they do have authorization to fight--al-Qaida and ISIS. Many of us would draw issue with the interpretation of an AUMF passed a decade and a half ago as it applies to ISIS, but no doubt the administration has the ability to pursue war against al-Qaida, and al-Qaida is gaining strength because of the continuation of this civil war.

If you talk to Yemeni-Americans, they will tell you that inside Yemen, this is not seen as a Saudi bombing campaign, this is seen as a U.S.-Saudi bombing campaign. And what they will further tell you is that Yemenis are becoming radicalized against the United States because there is a U.S. imprint on every bomb that is dropped and every single death inside that country.

While we may talk a good game about humanitarian relief and we may enter into occasional efforts to settle this conflict through negotiations, all they know is that for 3 years the United States has been supporting a Saudi bombing campaign that does not end. We have been supporting a Saudi-led coalition that has blocked humanitarian relief from entering this country. We may hear a lot about the money that the Saudis are putting into humanitarian relief, but we don't hear as much about the fact that at one point they completely closed the port through which the majority of humanitarian relief flows. Although now it is technically open, they are still narrowing the channel greatly through which relief supplies get to this country. So nobody should applaud the United States or the Saudis for providing relief to a country that they, indeed, are bombing.

I am not setting aside the culpability of the Houthis for substantial atrocities in this civil war as well, but we are only on one side of it.

This is clearly covered by the powers vested in the U.S. Congress to make war. If it isn't, it unlocks a horrific Pandora's box. If the President can enter into hostilities against another country so long as all they are doing is providing vast logistical support to a coalition partner, then there is no end to what the President can do so long as he doesn't put a troop on the ground.

Our involvement in the Saudi-led coalition has serious national security implications for the United States, aside from the fact that it has resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians and has set off the worst humanitarian catastrophe the world has seen today. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I just want to bring these consequences to bear for our colleagues to think about--our colleagues who might not think that this rises to the powers vested in the Congress by the Constitution. There are very few more serious conflicts with respect to consequences for the United States than this one. So I guess I would wrap back around that question that Senator Lee posed to Senator Sanders.

If the United States doesn't weigh in here, then, when? What is the precedent that is set by Congress's continuing to remain silent even when you have a humanitarian catastrophe and a set of consequences for U.S. national security that are this big?

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank Senator Sanders for the question. This is incredibly important to understand.

There was great consternation in the beginning of this civil war, when the United States, under the Obama administration, was beginning to support the Saudi-led coalition. The Saudis were only targeting the Houthis, and as the al-Qaida wing inside of Yemen was getting stronger and stronger, no matter how much we asked, no matter how much we pushed, the Saudi-led coalition would not drop bombs on al-Qaida and would not send any of their forces near them. They were only focused on the Houthis.

The answer as to why that was happening is very simple. The enemy of your enemy tends to be your ally, and inside Yemen, the Houthis were drawing fire from both the Saudi-led coalition and from al-Qaida. In the early stages of this fight, the policy of the Saudi-led coalition was to have hands off of al-Qaida, and that made al-Qaida stronger and stronger and stronger.

Now, admittedly, recently we have been more successful in getting the Emirates, not necessarily the Saudis, to take on targeted missions against al-Qaida, but that is only a recent phenomenon, and it is frankly belied by the fact that we have new information that at the same time that the Emirates are occasionally taking out operations--and sometimes dangerous operations, with risk of life to their forces against al-Qaida--they are also supporting other militias inside Yemen--Salafist militias--that are in many ways just as radical as al- Qaida is and are recruiting the types of recruits that one day may join ISIS and one day may join al-Qaida, targeting against the United States. So this is a very chaotic space in which very purposefully, for a period of time, the coalition allowed for al-Qaida to grow. Even though that policy has changed recently, there are still signs that there are some people who are very dangerous to the United States who are being supported on the ground by members of our coalition.

I know Senator Durbin is here, so I want to turn it over to him. I just want to say two more quick things on this point. One is to note that our resolution does continue to allow for the United States to target al-Qaida. We built into this resolution a carve-out for any military activities that are currently authorized by the 2001 AUMF, and the administration interprets that to be al-Qaida and affiliated follow-on organizations. So let's be clear that if you care about the United States targeting al-Qaida, that can continue here.

Finally, to Senator Lee's point about this interpretation of hostilities, let's be clear about how narrow a definition that is. There have to be American troops on the ground exchanging fire in order for the War Powers Act to be triggered. That is not what Congress intended because, in fact, that would then allow the administration to perpetuate an unlimited air campaign, dropping unlimited munitions, devastating, ruining a country, without any input from Congress. Even if one would say ``Well, that does involve U.S. personnel flying overhead, so maybe that is potentially putting U.S. troops in the line of fire,'' remember, we are also entering an era of robotic warfare, in which U.S. personnel are going to be less instrumental to hostilities that will still have grave consequences for the United States.

Clearly, the notion of war and how you fight it has changed over the years. The Founding Fathers never imagined air campaigns. Yet, the intent and the language of the War Powers Act and of the Constitution are clear. When war is being waged, when hostilities are being entered into, Congress has to have a say. Please, look at any of the pictures that we are putting before you and tell us that the United States is not engaged in hostilities if the effect in the country of Yemen is this.

I thank Senator Durbin for joining us on the floor today, and I yield to him.

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