Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. Removal of United States Armed Forces From Hostilities in Yemen That Have Not Been Authorized By Respect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions Reported From the Committee on Rules; and Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I want to thank my good friend, Chairman McGovern, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Normally, Madam Speaker, I would be agreeing with my good friend, Mr. McGovern, on the issue of congressional war powers, and, frankly, I want to applaud his efforts over the years to reassert congressional war powers.

It is a responsibility, in my view and, I know, my friend's view, that Congress has abdicated and one which we must work to reclaim in the weeks and months ahead. I commit to work with my friend, as I have in the past, to do just that in the future. But, in my view, this particular issue is not about congressional war powers.

Madam Speaker, we had a spirited debate on this joint resolution in the Rules Committee Monday night, and I expect that today's debate will be just as spirited. The reason is because this measure concerns one of the most important of Congress' powers: the power under Article I of the Constitution to declare war and to say when, where, and with whom the American Armed Forces will be committed to combat.

In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which is intended to give Congress and the President procedures to follow when committing U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities and to give Congress a method to instruct the President to remove U.S. forces from hostilities.

Today, the majority is bringing up H.J. Res. 37, a resolution ostensibly arising under Congress' powers under the War Powers Resolution, to instruct the President to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in Yemen. Specifically, this refers to United States support for key allies, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia in their intervention in the civil war in Yemen against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

Unfortunately, Madam Speaker, I believe this resolution is fatally flawed, misstates the facts, and will not accomplish what the majority is promising. For that reason, I oppose this rule and oppose this joint resolution.

Let's start with the text of the resolution.

Section 2 of the resolution directs the President to ``remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting the Republic of Yemen except United States Armed Forces engaged in operations directed at al-Qaida or associated forces.''

Of course, the problem with this resolution is that, under the terms of the War Powers Resolution, American Armed Forces are not currently engaged in hostilities. Hostilities, under the War Powers Resolution, means firing weapons or dropping bombs.

As we heard on Monday night at rules, the United States is presently providing assistance to the Saudi-led coalition that falls short of actual hostilities. We are providing intelligence and logistics support to an ally, but that is a far cry from the threshold necessary to be considered hostilities for the purposes of the War Powers Resolution.

This came up during Monday night's Rules Committee debate. I note that even Representative Connolly, who spoke in favor of this resolution at the Foreign Affairs Committee a few weeks ago, stated that ``the United States is not technically involved on the ground in hostilities.''

If we are not ``technically involved'' in hostilities--we don't have troops on the ground, we don't have flights in the air, and we are not engaging in combat missions of any kind against the Houthis in Yemen-- then what does this resolution actually accomplish?

The majority attempts to get around this by redefining hostilities to mean ``in-flight refueling non-United States aircraft conducting missions as part of the ongoing civil war in Yemen.''

Even if I did accept, for the sake of argument, that this is a legitimate definition--and I don't--this is still a false statement. The United States is not currently providing Saudi Arabia with in- flight refueling assistance and has not since early November of last year. That fact is just one of the many problems with the resolution.

I do point out the last administration certainly did that. It is actually this administration that canceled that procedure, which it inherited from the Obama administration.

But even if the statement, again, were accurate, I believe the majority's resolution raises significant questions that should give us pause.

Across the globe, the United States has security agreements with 117 countries, including Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Saudi-led coalition. We as a nation and the President of the United States have obligations under those security agreements, including to provide them with support when they find themselves in combat situations. The resolution the majority is asking us to consider today is putting all of those security agreements--all 117 of them--into jeopardy.

When the President provides assistance short of hostilities to allies and to countries with whom the United States has a security agreement, the President is generally well within his or her rights as Commander in Chief to do so and well within his or her statutory authority to do so.

It is only when American troops enter hostilities that the War Powers Resolution applies, and today, in Yemen, American forces are not involved in hostilities.

I think that the majority should sit back and think about the possible consequences of this resolution. For allies around the globe, this resolution should give them pause; and, for our adversaries, this resolution should give them hope.

For the first time, the United States Congress would be saying that the President of the United States no longer has the authority to provide assistance short of hostilities that we have agreed to under our security agreements with these countries. For our allies and NATO, this would put in jeopardy our commitment to the collective defense of Europe.

For our allies in the Pacific, like South Korea and Japan, it would put into question our ability to continue to provide support in the event of a conflict with North Korea.

For potential adversaries like Russia or Iran, this resolution provides the hope that America will not live up to its security commitments and will not support our allies during their time of need.

Perhaps most disturbingly, it would put our ongoing security arrangements with the state of Israel in question. In 1973, shortly before the War Powers Resolution was passed, Israel was subject to a surprise attack. During the resulting Yom Kippur War, while Israel was fighting for its survival, the United States launched an effort to resupply Israel. The United States military airlifted supplies, ammunition, and vehicles to Israel, helping to ensure their continued survival. However, we were never engaged in hostilities. We never committed forces to combat.

If the majority has its say, U.S. assistance to Israel under similar circumstances could be put in jeopardy. Under the type of resolution the majority is putting forward today, Israel would have good cause to question the U.S. commitment to that nation and to question our commitment to providing Israel with support in the future.

Should the United States provide Israel with the support it needs, our allies would have good reason to fear that a portion of the House of Representatives would try to shut off the tap by putting forward a resolution like this. I suggest to my friends that they rethink whether the War Powers Resolution should or even can be used in this way.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My friends talked a great deal about human rights, and I just want to make the point that I don't believe--I surely don't believe they think that the Houthi rebels in Yemen are great defenders of human rights or that the Iranian forces who are on the ground in Yemen are actually there to advance human rights and are defending them.

Frankly, I think this issue has more to do with whether or not we are involved in hostilities, which we clearly are not.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), my good friend, a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up the text of H.R. 336, the Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019. One of the four constituent parts of this bill has already passed the House by voice vote in this Congress, and three of the four constituent parts passed the House by voice vote last Congress.

The four parts of this bill authorize assistance and weapons transfers to Israel, extend defense cooperation with Jordan, establish additional sanctions related to the conflict in Syria, and allows States to divest from entities boycotting Israel. On the whole, unlike the resolution on the floor today, it will preserve and strengthen our relationship with our allies and reaffirm America's commitment to a peaceful and more secure Middle East.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Cheney), my distinguished colleague and the chair of the Republican Conference.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wyoming.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and then I will turn to my friend from Texas.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend for his comments. And we do; we just disagree. I do not see this as appropriate for the War Powers Resolution, because we don't have troops in common; we have not committed anybody to hostilities. But the Commander in Chief historically has had broad authority to assist countries that we have agreements and arrangements with that he thinks are important in our own security, short of committing troops into combat. I think that is precisely what he is doing.

Frankly, that is what his predecessor did. It would have been nice if our friends were as equally concerned when President Obama actually was committing us to the kinds of activities we are talking about. I don't recall hearing a lot about it then, but I am happy to discuss it now.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul), the former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and the current ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Zeldin), my good friend.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time to close.

Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to this rule and the underlying measure.

The majority has brought up a resolution under the War Powers Resolution instructing the President to remove the United States Armed Forces from hostilities in Yemen. Unfortunately, this resolution is misguided. United States Armed Forces are not currently involved in hostilities in Yemen, and it is unclear exactly what this resolution will accomplish.

Further, passage of this resolution would likely damage our relationships with our allies, who would have reason to question our commitments to them, and embolden our potential adversaries in the future.

I want to take just a moment to, frankly, reaffirm and thank my friend for his strong assertion of Congress' powers under war powers. I think he has absolutely been a leader in this area, and I have tried to work with him on many occasions.

I want to state for the Record, I look forward to working with him in this area again, because I think this body, under both Republicans and Democrats, has far too often abdicated its responsibilities and simply left it to the executive branch to determine when we were at war.

Frankly, when President Bush 41 went to war in the Gulf, he came to Congress and asked for its permission; when President Bush 43 went to war, he came to Congress and asked for its permission in both Afghanistan and Iraq--and they received it.

President Obama never bothered to do that. Whether it was in Libya or whether it was extending the mission, in many cases, he simply did not choose to do that. And, frankly, it was President Obama who began the actions that concerned my friends in Yemen.

So, again, my friend has appropriately tried to pursue, over the course of his career, the reassertion of congressional war powers, and I commend him for that. This case is not one of those cases.

The President of the United States does have legitimate powers as Commander in Chief to support friends and allies short of war without congressional approval. That has happened time and time and time again in American history.

We have 117 security agreements with various countries around the world. Some of those are with countries we have formal alliances with, some of them are not. They do not commit the United States to hostilities, but they do say, in certain situations, we will be there to render support.

I agree with my friend that there have been atrocities in Yemen. I think he is absolutely right about that. I think, unfortunately, we didn't talk very much about the Iranian role in that. We didn't talk very much about the Houthi role in that. We didn't talk very much about who overthrew a legitimate government and what other countries were involved in that. This is a lot more complex than that.

But, in this case, unlike Libya, for instance, where President Obama did commit us to military activity without coming to this Chamber and asking permission, somehow stretched the NATO alliance to cover our participation in a conflict within a country that had not attacked any member of NATO, let alone the United States of America, that was a time we should have done something like this.

Right now, in my view, whether you agree with him or not, the President is exercising his legitimate authority as Commander in Chief. And it is worth noting for the Record, he is actually doing less than his predecessor, President Obama, did. He actually is the person, President Trump, who ordered the cessation of aerial refueling operations with the Saudi Air Force.

Again, there is room for disagreement here. I know, on the underlying issue of congressional war powers, my friend and I agree. I look forward to working with him on that issue as we go forward, as I know we will. But, in my opinion, this is the wrong place and the wrong time to have this debate.

I think the President is operating well within his rights. He has made it clear he will veto this legislation should it pass the United States Senate. None of us know whether it will. But I can assure you this: that veto will have more than enough votes to sustain it.

So, again, I thank my friend for the spirited debate and discussion. It is always thoughtful.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question, ``no'' on the underlying measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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