Iran Press/America: Asserting congressional authority over war-making powers, the US House of Representatives approved a resolution Wednesday that would force the Trump administration to withdraw US troops from involvement in Yemen, in a rebuke of Donald Trump’s alliance with the Saudi-led coalition behind the military intervention, The Guardian reported.
Lawmakers in both parties are increasingly uneasy over the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and are skeptical of the US partnership with that coalition, especially in light of Saudi Arabia’s role in the killing of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the royal family.
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Passage of the measure would mark the first time Congress has relied on the decades-old War Powers Resolution to halt military intervention. It also would set up a potential confrontation with the White House, which has threatened a veto. The House voted 248-177 to approve the measure, sending it to the Senate, where a similar resolution passed last year.
“We have helped create, and worsen, the world’s largest humanitarian crisis,” said the California representative Barbara Lee, a Democrat, during the debate. “Our involvement in this war, quite frankly, is shameful.”
The chairman of the House foreign relations committee, Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, said the vote represented 'Congress reclaiming its role in foreign policy'.
Senate approval would set up a showdown with the administration – a veto would be Trump’s first – over the president’s shifting approach on foreign policy.
Earlier on December 13, the Senate voted to begin debate on a measure that would end US military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
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Since 2015, the administration says, the US has provided support to the coalition, including intelligence and, until recently, aerial refueling.
Congress has not invoked the War Powers Resolution, which requires the approval of military actions since it was enacted in 1973. Lawmakers approved more sweeping authorizations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that some argue are being used too broadly for other military actions.
Some 20,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led military aggression in March 2015.
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