Motion to Discharge--S.J. Res. 54
Floor Speech
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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I want to speak very briefly on behalf of the resolution being offered today by Senator Sanders, Senator Lee, me, and several others. I encourage my colleagues to support it. I want to use my brief time to respond to some of the arguments that the administration has made over the course of the last few days as to why we should not stand together as a body and say that without a congressional declaration of war, the United States cannot and should not be involved in a disastrous civil war in Yemen.
This is as important a vote as we will take in the Senate. Lives are at stake; lives are in the balance. I don't need to repeat everything Senator Sanders and others have said about the humanitarian catastrophe that exists inside that country. Yet this is different than other famines. This is different than other cholera outbreaks. This is different than other humanitarian nightmares in which tens of thousands of children lose their lives because we are not just a spectator in Yemen; we are participant. The bombing campaign that is causing the worst humanitarian nightmare in the world today is caused by a military campaign of which the United States is a major player and participant. So we have something to say today about whether this civil war ends. We have something to say about whether this Congress is going to allow the administration to continue to perpetuate a war that has had no debate in the U.S. Congress.
Let me take the four arguments the administration uses to try to argue against our resolution and talk to you a little bit about them.
The first argument that has been made--it is probably the most clear in Secretary Pompeo's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning--is that the real issue is not Saudi Arabia, it is Iran, and if we do not continue to support the Saudis' bombing campaign inside Yemen, the result will be that Iran will win in the region.
First, that exhibits a third-grade understanding of the Middle East. The Middle East is not a zero-sum game between the Saudis and the Iranians. Every time you do something that is potentially disadvantageous to the Saudis doesn't mean it results in an equal-sized benefit for the Iranians. In fact, it may be that both countries are doing things that are deleterious to American national security. It may be that we want to pick and choose when we engage with the Saudis and when we don't engage with the Saudis. Just because we choose not to engage in one particular aspect of Saudi foreign policy does not mean that it equals a gift to the Iranians. Yet that is what Secretary Pompeo would have you believe; that if we don't blindly support the Saudis' civil war inside Yemen, then that will be a win for the Iranians.
The reality is, while this civil war has been occurring, al-Qaida and ISIS have gotten stronger and more numerous. In fact, the greatest threat to the American homeland today comes from the wing of al-Qaida that is inside Yemen. This civil war that we have been helping to perpetuate is actually making our most sacred enemy even stronger inside that country.
Second, there has to be a line that is crossed in which our ally has gone too far, that we are not willing to follow. Clearly, that has happened in Saudi Arabia as they intentionally bomb schools and hospitals and schoolbuses. Just because we stand up and say: We are not willing to support you, Saudi Arabia, in your targeted bombing of civilians, that does not equally gift to Iran. We are still able to decide when we engage or not engage even with our allies.
Third, a lot of folks seem to believe there is some command-and- control relationship between the Iranians and the Houthis. They are, certainly, tied together. There are, certainly, weapons capabilities that have been gifted, granted, to the Houthis by the Iranians, but the Houthis are not Hezbollah. This is not a group of fighters that Iran controls. In fact, as the civil war goes on and on and gets deeper and deeper, the Houthis and the Iranians get closer and closer together. So as we continue to just feed enough support to the Saudis to keep the civil war going, we are actually perpetuating the very end we seek to avoid, which is the merger of the Iranian regime and the Houthi rebels. They are becoming closer and closer the longer and longer the United States becomes engaged in this conflict.
The Middle East is not a zero-sum game. You do not have to unconditionally back the Saudis in everything they ask of us simply because you don't like the Iranians. That is not how the Middle East works. You can pick and choose the places in which you back up your ally--at no cost to your campaign--so as to try to delegitimize and reduce the influence of Iran.
Second, the claim is that this resolution, if it were to be agreed to, would hurt the negotiations that are scheduled for next month. False. It is exactly the opposite for two reasons.
One, the Saudis need to understand that our support is not unconditional, that they actually have to bend at the negotiating table. Right now, they don't believe they have to do that. In fact, over the course of this civil war, they have been, more often than not, the reluctant party in these negotiations because they believe that if negotiations fall apart and they return to a state of military hostilities, the United States will give them whatever they need. It is really important right now for the Saudis to understand, as they head into these negotiations, that if these negotiations don't succeed, there will be consequences.
Second, the idea that the Houthis are ready to give up the fight, that they are tired, is also false. There is no evidence of that. The Houthis don't believe the negotiation is real, so they are prepared to just fight it out. If the Houthis believe the United States is an honest broker here, that there is some point at which we are unwilling to follow the Saudis into battle as they continue to deliberately attack civilians inside Yemen, then the Houthis will be actually more willing to sit and talk at the negotiating table. Showing that there is some conditionality to our support for the Saudis, that there is some line on war crimes that they cross that is too far, is actually helpful in getting both of these parties closer together at the negotiating table.
Third, the claims that if this resolution were to be agreed to, it would hurt our work against al-Qaida and ISIS are absolutely false. Inside this resolution is an exclusion. What we say is, if there is an existing authorization for war inside Yemen, this resolution does not erase it. There is an existing authorization for any campaign anywhere in the world that the United States launches against al-Qaida. The administration and the prior administration, the Obama administration, have expanded the 9/11 AUMF to cover ISIS as well, so nothing in this resolution hurts our ability to go after al-Qaida and ISIS inside Yemen. All of those operations can continue, even if this is to be agreed to and becomes law.
Second, al-Qaida has been growing in strength. ISIS had no foothold in Yemen before this civil war. It is stronger today than it was 3 years ago because, once again, like we did in Iraq for 10 years and like we are doing in Syria, we are giving just enough help to the Saudis to keep the civil war going without actually ever being willing to give enough force so as to be dispositive on the ground. All we are doing is lengthening the civil war. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the vacuum that is created by that civil war, especially in the vast, ungovernable portions of Yemen, al-Qaida takes advantage, and ISIS continues to grow. Every day we continue to just keep this thing going, our sworn Sunni extremist enemies are getting stronger.
Lastly, the argument is made that if the United States is not involved with the Saudis, the humanitarian nightmare would be worse. How could it be worse? How is that a justification? There are 85,000 children under the age of 5 who have died of starvation and disease. There are 22 million people in the country, and three-quarters of the population cannot live without humanitarian assistance. The world's worst cholera epidemic in the history of the world is happening right now inside that country. Why? Because the Saudis have been deliberately hitting the water treatment facilities. I am not making this up. They have been targeting the water treatment facilities so you can't get clean water, so people get cholera.
Today, humanitarian supplies have been reduced by 50 percent to the Port of Hodeidah because, as we speak, the Saudis, with U.S. support, are bombing all around Hodeidah, and humanitarian agencies have cut off many of the supplies they would traditionally send into that capital. The humanitarian nightmare is getting worse right now, as we speak today, because this civil war continues to go on and on.
It can't get much worse than it is today, and there is no evidence that the U.S.' participation in this campaign has made it better. In fact, since we have been sitting inside these targeting centers, with U.S. personnel helping the Saudis pick targets, more civilians have been killed, not fewer. We actually pulled out of the targeting centers at the end of the Obama administration. The Obama administration made a determination in 2016 that we were potentially committing war crimes by being with the Saudis as they were choosing to hit the water treatment facilities, so they pulled our people out.
There is no evidence that during the time we were not in the targeting centers, the Saudis were hitting more civilian targets. In fact, the evidence tells us that the deeper we get involved in the targeting decisions, the more they hit civilian targets. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. So long as they have the United States inside the tent, they have moral cover for hitting civilian targets. They can use us to say: Well, the United States was there. It was inside the room when these decisions were made, so it can't be that we are doing the kind of damage you say we are.
The evidence doesn't suggest the contrary. The evidence says, the contrary is true--of a 160-percent increase in civilians being killed just this year versus last year. So the Middle East isn't a zero-sum game. The adoption of this resolution does not empower Iran. We are not obligated to follow the Saudis into every mistake they make.
Second, this resolution will not hurt negotiations. It will absolutely help negotiations by showing that the United States is going to be an honest broker. The Houthis are bad players. They have killed a lot of people. They have done a lot of damage inside that country. This is not just a question of what the Saudis have done. Seventy percent of the civilians have been killed by Saudi bombs, but the Houthis need to be held to account for what they have done as well. We need to be a broker of peace. This resolution will help us be a broker of peace.
Third, al-Qaida and ISIS can still be confronted, even if this resolution is agreed to, and the quicker this civil war ends, the less power they have.
Fourth, theoretically, maybe things could be worse. Maybe we could have 185,000 children under the age of 5 die from starvation and disease, but this is not a justification to just stay the course. We need to shake up the stalemate that exists today. We need to send a signal that the United States is not OK with the way the Saudis have perpetuated this war--frankly, the way they have lied to us over the course of the last several months about other things they are doing to quell dissent in and around the Kingdom. We need to send a message, but we also need to get the United States out of a conflict right now that is of no benefit to American national security and that has become a nightmare for people who are stuck in Yemen today.
I urge the adoption of the resolution.
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