The House today passed a resolution to end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition operating in Yemen, a repudiation of President Trump’s continued cooperation with and defense of the kingdom and its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
The measure passed 248 to 177, and was supported by 230 Democrats and 18 Republicans.
It marks the end of a months-long campaign from the legislation’s sponsors, whom House Republican leaders blocked last year from bringing the measure to the floor — even as a bipartisan majority of the Senate voted to approve it.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had promised a vote when Democrats took over the House this year.
The war-powers legislation now heads back to the Senate, where sponsors said they are “hopeful” that similar numbers of Republicans and Democrats will vote for it when the measure comes up in the next few weeks.
But even if they manage to pass the resolution in that body, Trump is already threatening to veto it.
Trump’s advisers this week warned that the war powers resolution raised constitutional concerns and was “flawed” in its premise, as U.S. forces were not fighting on the ground in Yemen.
Its sponsors, however, rejected that notion.
“This is exactly the type of hostilities that the framers of the War Powers Resolution contemplated,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said in an interview.
The United States is one of several countries backing Saudi forces, which entered Yemen’s long-running civil war in 2015 seeking to oust the Houthi rebels, who are sponsored to an extent by Iran, Saudi Arabia’s chief regional competitor.
But in the four years since the United States joined the Saudi coalition, there has been little progress toward resolving the civil war, while an already bleak humanitarian situation there has worsened.
Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have been afflicted by cholera and malnutrition, while millions are at risk of starvation as the stalemate persists.
In the meantime, human rights organizations have charged that Saudi blockades and attacks on Yemen’s ports are preventing civilians from getting much-needed aid.
The United States has also come under fire for continuing to provide the Saudis with weapons.
The killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi prompted lawmakers to take a critical look at Saudi leaders, in particularly Mohammed, whom many lawmakers have said is liable for the murder.
Trump has to date defended the crown prince’s denials of involvement. Last week, he also missed two congressionally mandated deadlines to report to lawmakers on the status of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and announce sanctions against which officials he deemed to be responsible for Khashoggi’s death — or explain why he was declining to do so.
The CIA in November assessed that the crown prince had ordered the killing.