News Release

Breaking: Sanders War Powers Bill to Stop Saudi Attack on Yemen Passes Senate

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The Senate just passed a bill invoking the War Powers Resolution to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen by a vote of 54-46.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of the bill’s sponsors just tweeted: “This is historic. For the first time in 45 years, Congress is one step closer to withdrawing U.S. forces from an unauthorized war. We must end the war in Yemen.” See video.

JEHAN HAKIM, hakimjehan at gmail.com
Hakim is chair of the Yemeni Alliance Committee [see on Facebook], a leading grassroots group on the issue.

HASSAN EL-TAYYAB, eltayyab at justforeignpolicy.org@justfp
El-Tayyab is co-director of Just Foreign Policy, a leading national group on the issue. The group helped organize a letter on the bill signed by over 70 major groups, stating: “The war in Yemen has helped create the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the UN, with roughly 12 million people at risk of famine. Aid agencies have described Yemen as the worst place in the world to be a child — the conflict has claimed the lives of at least 85,000 children under the age of five from hunger and disease. More than 1 million people have been infected with cholera, with an alarming 10,000 new cases each week. All of the parties have demonstrated a near-total indifference to the welfare of Yemeni civilians. In one particularly harmful example of this, the Saudi-led coalition has imposed a de-facto blockade on Yemen and impeded the flow of food, fuel, and medicine, pushing prices of essential goods out of reach for millions of Yemenis.”

See prior Institute for Public Accuracy news releases on the issue.

The bill is titled: “A joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress.”

Note: The ACLU has voiced serious legal objections to exceptions contained in the legislation since the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force is still in effect.