Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2019
Floor Speech
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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, Senator Boozman is here and is scheduled to speak before me.
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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, included in the underlying appropriations bill are funds to continue the U.S. support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign inside Yemen. I will speak about an amendment I have that would stop the U.S. support for this campaign pending a determination by the administration that we are in compliance with U.S., international, and humanitarian law regarding the targeting of civilians.
3793.
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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, of course, I am disappointed by the chairman's objection, but I take his commitment to work on this issue to heart, and I look forward to doing that.
I would like to speak for a moment about the amendment and the reason I was very hopeful, and remain hopeful, that we may get the chance to vote on this before the consideration of this bill is passed because in this legislation is substantial funding in order to perpetuate a bombing campaign inside Yemen that is making this country less safe. I argue that since this bill was debated in the Appropriations Committee, some horrifying, new information has come to light that should cause us to reconsider whether this is something that is so urgent, we need to deal with it now, this week, that it can't wait.
Unfortunately, these pictures are a dime a dozen. You could find any number of them every single day coming out of this theater. This picture, in particular, is of a community center that was bombed by the Saudi and UAE-led coalition that the United States finances and supports.
Inside this community center, a funeral was occurring when it was ostensibly targeted and bombed by the United States, the Saudis, and the UAE. This is a horrifying scene, in and of itself, but to know a funeral was occurring there makes it even worse.
What we now know is, the targeting of civilians inside Yemen is getting worse, not better. The new information I spoke of is something that I think is on the minds of many of my colleagues. That new information is that last week, the Saudi-U.S. coalition hit a schoolbus in northern Yemen intentionally. The Saudi's initial reaction was that it was a legitimate military target. There is no way a schoolbus is a legitimate military target. That schoolbus was carrying dozens of children, dozens of children who are now dead because of a 500-pound bomb made in the United States and sold to the coalition.
Over the course of this year, the targeting inside Yemen has gotten more and more catastrophic.
On June 11, a Doctors Without Borders cholera treatment facility, located in the center of a humanitarian compound, with no military value, was hit. There is no way this is a mistake. Everyone knew about this humanitarian compound with a cholera treatment facility inside of it, and the Saudi coalition bombed it anyway. There is no way that is a mistake. There is no way that is a military target. That is an intentional bombing of a cholera treatment facility.
Two weeks later, on July 24, a UNICEF water treatment facility was hit. I will talk a little bit about the cholera epidemic in Yemen in a moment, but the reason there is a cholera epidemic, the biggest in recorded history, is because of these water treatment facilities that are being taken down by the Saudi-led coalition--another one hit on the 24th.
On July 28, a water main supply for Yemen's most important port city was hit, and then on August 9, as I mentioned, there was the schoolbus full of children--kids 6 years old to 11 years old. Forty-four children died, and many more were left without arms, legs, or had other injuries.
There was a video and photos of the wreckage. The coalition initially denied there were any children on the bus, and they still claim it was a legitimate military target.
The United States is a key player in this bombing campaign. The United States has personnel who sit in the targeting center when decisions are made as to what sites on the ground will be bombed. The United States pays to put planes in the air to refuel the fighter jets flown by the Saudis and the Emirates, and the United States sells the coalition the bombs that are used.
In fact, in this Congress, we have authorized, have taken votes on several sales of precision-guided missiles. We sell them PGMs because we believe they will make fewer mistakes. That probably is right. They are probably making fewer mistakes with the PGMs. The problem is, their targets are schoolbuses, funerals, water treatment facilities, and water mains. They can more effectively hit their civilian targets with the bombs we are selling.
My amendment, which was objected to, would simply say we should not continue to fund this bombing campaign until we have a certification from the administration that the campaign comports with international and U.S. humanitarian laws, humanitarian laws that the United States has signed on to.
These laws effectively say, bombing campaigns such as this need to be proportional to the threat, but, most importantly, they need to refrain from targeting civilian populations.
At some point, we need to believe our eyes rather than the reports we get from the administration that the targeting is getting better and that without the United States in these targeting centers, without the PGMs, and without the refueling missions, the targeting would be worse; that the civilian casualties would be worse.
It is hard to imagine it being any worse than it is today. It is hard to imagine anything worse than schoolbuses and water treatment facilities and cholera treatment centers being targeted by this coalition. At some point, we have to believe what we are seeing rather than what we are being told by the administration.
There has been a 37-percent increase in civilian casualties from airstrikes in 2018 compared to 2017. Seventy percent of the civilian deaths inside Yemen are caused by these coalition airstrikes.
I can spend time talking to you about the atrocities the Houthis, who are on the other side of this civil war, have committed, but the fact is, the majority of the civilian casualties are caused by the side we are supporting--that we are supporting.
Lastly, let me make the case to you that even if you don't buy the unconscionable nature of targeting civilians with U.S. support, this bombing campaign is making the United States less safe every single day. What we know is, AQAP is the most lethal arm of al-Qaida. It has the greatest capacity to hit the American homeland. It has gotten nothing but stronger inside of Yemen since this civil war started. There are new reports that our coalition partners, the Saudis and UAE, have been cutting secret deals with these terrorist organizations. They are not killing or defeating them, but they are just cutting deals with them to push them out of the way.
There are new reports that the UAE is aligning itself with radical Salafi militias inside Yemen. They are maybe not groups that are technically labeled ``ISIS'' or ``AQAP,'' but they are groups that essentially trade fighters back and forth with these groups that are aligned with the UAE, aligned with the Saudi coalition on the ground. The very people who want to kill us are getting stronger every single day inside Yemen--every single day that this war goes on.
We have been told by the Saudis and the UAE that if we just keep on backing their play here, eventually, there will be a political settlement. We are getting further and further away from a political settlement every single day.
They are going after Hodeidah now, the humanitarian port. Let me tell you, the Houthis are going to fight to the end to protect Hodeidah, never mind if there is an eventual assault on Sanaa. So the campaign is not expediting a political end; it is simply prolonging the misery and giving more opportunity for our mortal enemies there, those terrorist groups, to get stronger and stronger.
Lastly, the rationale we are given is that we have an interest here because the Iranians are backing the Houthis. There is no doubt--no doubt--that the Iranians are backing the Houthis. There is no doubt we have an interest in trying to push back against growing Iranian influence in the region, but every single day we participate in this campaign, the Iranians go in harder, the Iranians go in stronger.
The military campaign, which postpones the political settlement, is just making the Iranian presence in Yemen worse. They now have more advanced weapons than ever before inside Yemen, including short-range ballistic missiles, because they are readying to defend Hodeidah, and they are readying to defend Sanaa.
Just remember that when things like this happen, it is not that the Yemenis who survive blame the Saudis or the Emirates; they blame the United States. The world blames the United States. We are radicalizing a generation of Yemeni children against us, and that will have implications for U.S. national security for years to come.
Twenty-two million people inside Yemen today require humanitarian assistance. Seventy-five percent of the country cannot live without humanitarian assistance. Eight million people are on the brink of starvation, meaning they get one meal a day--one meal a day--and 1 million have been affected by cholera.
By the way, according to the WHO, we are on the brink of the third cholera outbreak in that country in the last year and a half because we continue to bomb water treatment facilities.
The bombing, the humanitarian catastrophe, it just shouldn't be on our conscience as a nation to be part of this, but it is making our country less safe every single day. Every single day that we continue this unchecked, unconditional support for this Saudi-led bombing campaign, we are making Iran stronger in the region, we are postponing a political settlement, and we are radicalizing Yemenis against us, driving them to AQAP, driving them into ISIS.
I am going to continue to try to convince my colleagues to allow us to take a vote on this amendment. Again, I just reiterate what this amendment says. It actually doesn't cut off support for this campaign. If I were King, I would cut off American support for this bombing campaign--I would--but I understand that is not where all of my colleagues are, so I am offering an amendment to simply say we should require the administration to certify that civilians aren't intentionally getting targeted, in contravention of U.S. law, before we continue to support this funding.
I truly think that if we took a vote on this, we would get the majority of the body to support the idea that a certification that civilians are not being targeted is a worthwhile precondition to continuing funding for this brutal military campaign.
I will continue to press this. I appreciate the support I have gotten from many Republicans. A growing number of Republicans are supporting the idea that as the facts change, we need to change our approach.
Before I wrap up, I will finally note that we had come together on an amendment to the authorization bill that we thought moved the ball forward. In the authorization bill, we actually did require that the administration make some of these basic certifications before continuing to fund the refueling missions.
In the President's signing statement, he effectively told us he would ignore that section of the authorization bill because he did not think it was in the authorizing power of the U.S. Congress to put those conditions on the refueling missions. I disagree. I think that is clearly within our authorizing power, but there is no way the President or the administration can object to conditions on appropriations because appropriations are unequivocally in the power of the U.S. Congress.
Given the fact that we all came together on these conditions under the leadership of Senator Reed, Senator Corker, and Senator Shaheen, amongst others, this is simply reiterating what we did in the authorizing bill--in the appropriating bill--to make sure we are doing our due diligence as the U.S. Congress to make sure this kind of horror isn't undertaken unnecessarily with U.S. funds.
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