[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 17, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2976-S2979]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Yemen

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, colleagues, I am very pleased to be joined 
on the floor today by Senator Young. We are both members of the Foreign 
Relations Committee, and both have an interest in Middle East security. 
We have joined together on the floor today to give remarks and perhaps 
have a short colloquy about a humanitarian crisis that is unfolding 
before our eyes in the Middle East.
  Today, inside the country of Yemen--a country that, frankly, not a 
lot of our constituents give much thought to--every 10 minutes a child 
under the age of 5 is dying due to preventable causes. Today, 18 
million Yemeni civilians--two thirds of the entire population of this 
country--cannot survive without humanitarian or protection support, and 
7 million of those are on what we would call a starvation diet, which 
means that on a daily basis they don't know where their next meal is 
coming from. They don't have enough food to eat in order to remain 
healthy. Three million have already fled their homes because of the 
violence that has been caused by a civil war--that both Senator Young 
and I will talk about--inside their country and the humanitarian 
catastrophe that has resulted from that civil war.
  This is one of four current famines that exists in the world today. 
But I would argue that this particular humanitarian crisis is in some 
ways the most relevant to the discussions we will have here in the 
Senate because the United States is participating in the military 
campaign that is, in fact, causing in part this humanitarian crisis.
  The United States is an active participant with a Saudi-led military 
campaign seeking to regain control of Yemen from a group called the 
Houthis, who overran the capital and now control large portions of the 
country.
  We, of course, are allies of Saudi Arabia. The President will be 
visiting Saudi Arabia very soon to solidify that alliance. But it is 
time we started asking some really hard questions about the conduct of 
the Saudi campaign inside Yemen and whether we are, in fact, helping to 
create a humanitarian catastrophe on the grounds that is impossible to 
defend on moral grounds but also is hard to defend based on national 
security grounds as well.
  Let's be honest about what is happening here. The Saudis are 
deliberately trying to create a famine inside Yemen in order to 
essentially starve the Yemenis to the negotiating table. Saudi Deputy 
Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman said:

       Time is on our side. Being patient is in our interest. We 
     have the supplies and we have the logistics and high morale. 
     The enemy does not have supplies and funds and is impatient. 
     Time is on our side and we will exploit the time to serve our 
     interests.

  What are the Saudis doing to try to exploit this question of time and 
supplies? First, they are coming directly after the main port city, 
which brings 70 percent of food into Yemen and about 80 percent of all 
of the oil. That port city is called Hodeidah.
  Senator Young has been very good in meetings to draw issue with what 
is believed to be deliberate targeting by the Saudis of the cranes and 
infrastructure in this port which allow for the supplies to come off of 
boats and move into these desperately, desperately needy areas of the 
country.
  Second, they are requiring an additional screening process for this 
humanitarian aid above and beyond the one the United Nations has put 
into place. The United Nations is vetting supply ships coming in to 
Hodeidah to make sure there is really food and aid on these ships, not 
weapons, and it is working. But the Saudis are putting an additional 
process on top that is adding up to a month from the time the aid gets 
off the ship and into the country. Between that and the military 
campaign targeting the port and its infrastructure, this has 
essentially resulted in an effective blockade being put in and around 
Hodeidah, such that humanitarian support cannot effectively get into 
the country. But that is just the beginning.
  The Saudi bombing campaign has deliberately targeted roads and 
bridges throughout the country, many of them in and around north Yemen. 
There are reports that the bombers have engaged in something called 
double tapping, which is where you hit a humanitarian--a civilian--
asset. You wait until the workers come to try to address that first 
strike, and then you hit it a second time to take out the civilians who 
have responded to the emergency. This isn't just my opinion of the 
situation. Representations have been made by multiple aid organizations 
on the ground, and, more importantly, by U.S. officials who have been 
embedded with the coalition.
  This is a quote from Dafna Rand, the former Deputy Assistant 
Secretary of State who was in charge of the Saudi coalition portfolio 
at State:

       In 2015, the U.S. Government offered technical training on 
     cyber, ballistic missiles, border security, counterterrorism, 
     and maritime security, [and] the precision guided 
     munitions were transferred in 2015 on the hopes that they 
     would enable better and more precise targeting by the 
     coalition of the targets

[[Page S2977]]

     itself. [But instead,] what we have seen since is not an 
     improvement in the targeting, and the issue itself is the 
     target selection. It is not the precision of the target 
     itself, but it is the choice of targets and adherence to 
     the no-strike list.

  That is a really important statement, a really important sentence, 
because what is happening is that the United States is telling the 
coalition: What are the civilian targets you should stay away from, so 
the humanitarian aid can move into the country? The coalition is 
deliberately ignoring that advice. It is not a matter of mistakes being 
made on the ground, though there have been mistakes. It is also a 
matter of a no-strike list being ignored.
  I mention that this is not just about the millions and millions of 
Yemenis who are starving today because of this civil war. It is also a 
question of whether this is accruing to the U.S. national security 
interests. Again, I am speaking just for myself on this matter.
  We are allies of the Saudis, and there is no doubt that an Iranian 
proxy state inside Yemen presents a threat to the Saudi State. There is 
no doubt that Houthis have been launching attacks into Saudi Arabia. 
This is a real security threat for our allies. But we do have to 
acknowledge that there are other players that exist inside Yemen today. 
It is not just the Houthis and those Yemeni forces supported by the 
Saudis. There is also al-Qaida--a branch of al-Qaida we know well 
because it has traditionally been the piece of al-Qaida that has the 
most advanced threats to the U.S. homeland--and ISIS, which is growing 
inside Yemen. They have taken advantage of this civil war to fill in 
the ungovernable spaces.
  Recently, with the help of the UAE, we have begun to hit back against 
al-Qaida and ISIS inside Yemen. But for a portion of time, they 
controlled a sizeable amount of territory and revenue inside that 
country. ISIS is growing as well.
  As a group of Yemeni Americans told me in my office about a year ago, 
to Yemenis the bombing campaign is not perceived as a Saudi bombing 
campaign; it is seen as a U.S. bombing campaign or, at the very least, 
a U.S.-Saudi bombing campaign.
  So when responsibility inside Yemen is allotted and attributed for 
this starvation campaign, it is placed upon the United States, as well 
as on Saudi Arabia. We have to think about what that means, given the 
fact that there is the potential for millions of Yemenis to be 
radicalized in a place with very sophisticated radical infrastructure. 
This is a real national security concern for the United States.
  I think it is time for us to draw a hard line with this coalition and 
say that we will not continue to support it if there is not a real 
commitment made to change the way the targeting happens and to make 
sure that relief supplies can flow into that country to try to address 
this unfolding famine and humanitarian catastrophe. We can be allies 
with the Saudis. We can be military allies with the Saudis. But they 
have to understand and their partners need to understand that this 
humanitarian nightmare inside Yemen is both immoral--to participate in 
a campaign that perpetuates that kind of humanitarian crisis--but it 
also, in the end, doesn't benefit the long-term security of the United 
States or our partners in the coalition.
  So we come down to the floor today to try to explain to our 
colleagues what is happening on the ground and to see if there is a 
bipartisan way for us to have a policy that brings significant relief 
to the suffering of the Yemeni people and strengthens our national 
security in the region.
  With that, I notice Senator Young is going to say a few words, and 
then I think we will engage in a colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Murphy to 
discuss the importance of this humanitarian crisis in Yemen. As he so 
cogently emphasized, this is, at once, a humanitarian crisis and also a 
security crisis in the region and beyond.
  I am a new member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and I 
have to say that I have quickly come to admire Senator Murphy for his 
forceful advocacy of our values of universal human rights and of 
American international leadership. So I commend him for his leadership 
on this issue in particular.
  I share many of the concerns articulated by Senator Murphy with 
regard to the situation in Yemen and the Saudi-led coalition there in 
that country. Before getting into the specific situation in Yemen, 
however, I think it is important to step back and look at the big 
picture.
  The world currently confronts humanitarian crises of a magnitude we 
haven't seen in many, many years. Parts of Nigeria, Somalia, South 
Sudan, and Yemen are all in famine or prefamine stages. According to 
the United Nations, 20 million people are at risk of starvation within 
the next few months in these four countries.
  The Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross 
appeared before our Senate Foreign Relations Committee just weeks ago, 
and he called the crises ``one of the most critical humanitarian issues 
to face mankind since the end of the Second World War.'' He warned that 
``we are at the brink of a humanitarian mega-crisis unprecedented in 
recent history.''
  Each of these crises are unique. They have their unique man-made 
causes. But in each case, the crises are preventable. They have been 
exacerbated by war and restrictions on humanitarian access. Now, they 
are complicated. The situation in Yemen is certainly a complicated one. 
But the United Nations calls the situation in Yemen the largest 
humanitarian crisis in the world. According to their Office for the 
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Yemen has almost 19 million 
people in need of humanitarian or protection assistance, including 
approximately 10 million who require immediate assistance to save their 
lives or to sustain their lives.

  This is an urgent matter, which is why I am so glad we have the 
leadership of Senator Murphy on this matter and some of my other 
colleagues on various fronts. This is why I led a 10-Member letter to 
Secretary Tillerson on March 23 calling for a diplomatic surge to 
address the political obstacles preventing the delivery of humanitarian 
aid. I note that Senator Murphy joined me on that letter, which I 
personally hand-delivered to Secretary Tillerson. It is also why I 
raised the issue with Ambassador Haley in New York City. It is why I 
introduced a resolution on April 5 calling for the very same thing. 
Senators Cardin, Boozman, Coons, Gardner, and Rubio joined that 
resolution.
  Throughout this process, rather than just studying the problem, I--
working with my colleagues--have tried to focus on tangible steps we 
can take to save lives and address this very troubling national 
security situation. For that reason, on April 27, joined by Senator 
Murphy and several other colleagues, I sent a letter to the incoming 
Saudi Ambassador. Noting the important security partnership between the 
United States and Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia's essential role as a 
regional leader and an ally and a partner, I asked Riyadh to consider 
five specific steps related to Yemen that would prevent thousands or 
even millions of additional people from starving there.
  There is no doubt that the Houthis and the Iranians bear a very large 
portion of the blame for this whole situation. I asked our ally Saudi 
Arabia to take these steps because the United States has a valuable 
security relationship with Saudi Arabia and because we can oppose 
Iran's activities in Yemen while ending unnecessary delays in the 
delivery of desperately needed humanitarian assistance. These two goals 
are not mutually exclusive.
  I didn't receive a satisfactory response, so I subsequently raised 
these issues with the Saudi Foreign Minister in a meeting on Capitol 
Hill. In that meeting, I cited the fact--confirmed again by the 
administration within the last week--that the Saudi-led coalition 
continues to impose significant delays on the delivery of humanitarian 
aid to the port of Hodeidah on the Red Sea. Again, this is important 
because the port of Hodeidah processes roughly 70 to 80 percent of 
Yemen's food and other critical imports. I mentioned to the Foreign 
Minister the U.S.-funded cranes for the port of Hodeidah that would 
dramatically improve the ability to offload humanitarian supplies at 
that port. I expressed concerns to the

[[Page S2978]]

Foreign Minister about the humanitarian impact of an attack on the port 
of Hodeidah. Yet, as the suffering of the Yemeni people continues and 
even worsens, these issues regretfully remain unresolved.
  According to the administration--confirmed again this morning--the 
Saudi-led coalition continues to be responsible for an average of 16 
days of additional delays to humanitarian shipments into the port of 
Hodeidah after vessels are cleared by the United Nations Verification 
and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen. Think about it. Your children are 
starving to death. Perhaps your entire village is starving to death. 
And you have a delay of an additional 16 days in humanitarian 
shipments. Think of the impact that has on security in the region as 
desperate people are forced to take desperate measures to associate 
themselves with bad actors in the area. It is certainly troubling to 
me.
  For that reason, I have decided to cosponsor Senator Murphy's 
legislation, S.J. Res. 40. Before the United States can transfer air-
to-ground munitions to Saudi Arabia, the legislation requires the 
President of the United States to make a number of certifications. One 
of those includes a certification that Saudi Arabia and its coalition 
partners are making demonstrable efforts to facilitate the flow of 
critical humanitarian aid and commercial goods. I don't believe the 
President could credibly make that assertion until the Saudis take some 
of the steps I have called for.
  As President Trump prepares his visit to Saudi Arabia, I urge him to 
raise these critical issues with the Saudi Government. I urge our 
President to emphasize that these are humanitarian and national 
security issues that are priorities of the American people. I urge the 
administration to ask the Saudi Government to take the following 
concrete actions: First, renounce any intention to conduct a military 
operation against the port of Hodeidah; second, redouble efforts to 
achieve a diplomatic solution; third, end any delays to the delivery of 
humanitarian aid caused by the Saudi-led coalition; and fourth, permit 
the delivery of much needed U.S. funded cranes to the port of Hodeidah 
that would permit the quicker delivery of food and medicine.
  I have said it before: With more than 10 million Yemenis requiring 
immediate humanitarian assistance, there is no time to waste. I stand 
ready to work with our Saudi partners to fight Iran's malign influence 
and to take these specific steps to begin to address the catastrophic 
humanitarian situation in Yemen.
  I again thank Senator Murphy for his leadership and for the 
opportunity to join him on the floor today. I look forward to working 
together again in the future.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Indiana. I think he 
walked through his thoughtful approach to this issue, which has led him 
to cosponsor this resolution placing these very commonsense conditions 
upon the transfer of further munitions.
  I might ask him a question. In his list of steps he has asked the 
Saudis to take--I have joined him in that letter, as have many of our 
colleagues--amongst them is a commitment to not take military action 
against the port of Hodeidah.
  We both met with the Foreign Minister, who talked about the need to 
use increased military pressure inside Yemen backed by U.S. 
participation in the coalition to try to draw the Houthis to the table. 
We have both expressed reservations about the effectiveness of that 
tactic, and we have something to say about it because none of this can 
occur without U.S. military support.
  Can the Senator talk a little bit about our joint fears or his 
personal fears about a major new campaign on this port that brings in 
so much of this aid and how, in the end, that really doesn't further 
the goals of the coalition, the United States being amongst the 
partners?
  Mr. YOUNG. It is a critical question, and it is one I have been 
asking so many stakeholders involved in this issue. No one has 
presented to me persuasive evidence indicating that a Saudi-led attack 
on the port would result in defeat of the Houthis-Saleh bloc. No one 
has presented to me evidence that I find compelling that that action 
would even force the Houthis bloc to the negotiating table.
  The onus ought to be on those who might take a military action--which 
would exacerbate the worst humanitarian crisis in the world--to present 
that evidence. I have asked for it. I haven't received it.
  I think it is just as likely that an attack would push the Houthis, 
as I alluded to earlier, into further alignment with and dependence on 
the Iranians, with whom they are allied. That is the exact opposite of 
what we are trying to accomplish in the region, as the Iranians 
continue to spread their influence and their terroristic activities 
across the Middle East. So this is not in the interests, as I see it, 
based on all the evidence available, of the United States, UAE, or 
Saudi Arabia, and it would result in both a humanitarian catastrophe 
and exacerbate the national security situation.
  Mr. MURPHY. I thank Senator Young for making it clear in his prepared 
remarks that while we are focusing on the Saudis because we are part of 
this coalition, the Houthis do not have clean hands here either. Part 
of the reason humanitarian supplies have a hard time getting to places 
that need them is because there are roadblocks put up by the Houthis as 
well. And there is this known connection between the Houthis and the 
Iranians--sometimes, in my opinion, a bit overplayed by some foreign 
policy thinkers, but it is real.
  To your second point in answer to my question, Senator Young, that 
is, to my mind, also a likely result of a deepening of the military 
conflict. If the Houthis had nowhere to turn, then the calculation 
might be different, but because the Iranians are there as a support 
system to lean on, a continued military campaign against Hodeidah would 
push them deeper into a corner and just broaden the scope of the 
military conflict.
  There ultimately has to be a political resolution here, and by simply 
upping the military ante and continuing the humanitarian crisis, you 
get further away from that political negotiating table rather than 
closer to it.
  Mr. YOUNG. Indeed. The last thing we want to do is to exacerbate a 
situation where we already have 10 million desperate people on the cusp 
of starvation or passing away on account of a lack of medical supplies.
  We need assistance here, which is why it is important for the 
President to elevate the importance of this issue in his conversation 
with the Saudis during his coming visit, and I believe he will do so. I 
believe he will do so because the international community, NGOs, 
understand the importance of this. Many at the State Department and the 
U.S. Agency for International Development have spoken about what a 
serious crisis this is. And we don't want to be shortsighted with 
respect to what a bombing of the port could catalyze.
  We also need to recognize that there are other players in the Saudi 
coalition that can be constructive as well. The Emirates, I would note, 
have shown a willingness to be helpful on a couple of different fronts.
  I had the opportunity to visit with the Crown Prince yesterday and 
received his assurance that he would seek to resolve without delay a 
situation related to the forward stationing of inspectors in his 
country so that they can pre-inspect cargo before it goes into the port 
of Hodeidah, and that would expedite the process and help mitigate a 
lot of the suffering that is occurring. Also, I had an opportunity to 
discuss with the Crown Prince this issue of four cranes. U.S. taxpayers 
paid for these cranes. I mentioned them in my prepared remarks earlier. 
And I have heard from the Crown Prince; he made a commitment there as 
well. So I am grateful for his commitment, and I look forwarding to 
following up with the UAE Government on this front. They are good 
allies to the United States.
  Mr. MURPHY. It goes without saying that it is in no one's interests 
in the region for this civil war to continue at its current pace. So 
this is an important moment at the beginning of a new administration, 
with a pending arms sale on the table with the Saudis, to

[[Page S2979]]

use that transition moment and the leverage that exists with this new 
proposal for major arms sales to the Saudis to make sure we get this 
right.
  I think there is nothing political about this. We all join together 
in trying to abate humanitarian crises and famines around the world, 
and we all want a policy that is going to bring an end to this civil 
war because, as I said, it is just as important to remember that the 
most immediate enemies of the United States--those terrorist groups who 
want to do harm to us--find their most fertile ground today inside 
Yemen. The sooner we can put an end to this civil war and be able to 
have a central government structure that spreads across the scope of 
the country, the quicker we can all be focused on trying to eliminate 
the ISIS and al-Qaida presence--AQAP, as we refer to them--in Yemen 
from that battlespace.
  I say to Senator Young, I don't know if you have closing remarks, but 
I appreciate your willingness to speak up and your leadership here, and 
I hope we can get others on both sides of the aisle to propose and 
support these commonsense conditions upon this new military transfer so 
that we can get the situation right inside Yemen.
  Mr. YOUNG. I say to the Senator, let me end by reiterating my 
gratitude to you, of course, for your exceptional leadership, for 
walking points on this issue, and I look forward to our continued work 
together.
  I thank all our colleagues who have engaged on this matter. And I, of 
course, before the U.S. Senate here, want to invite others to engage in 
this. If they have questions with respect to this matter, which is 
critical for our national security, I know they can reach out to the 
Senator or me, and it is imperative that we send a respectful message 
to the administration that we think this is something that needs to be 
addressed in the near term.

  I have nothing else to say.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Kennedy pertaining to the introduction of S. 1150 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if I came to you today and told you we 
had received a job application from somebody to work for the 
government, and you and I looked at her job application and we saw she 
had graduated from Harvard Law School, if we looked at her job 
application and we saw she had worked for a Presidential campaign, if 
we saw she had practiced law in the private sector, if we noticed from 
her resume that she had actually worked as a counsel, as a lawyer, in 
the White House, if we saw she had clerked for a Supreme Court Justice, 
Justice Anthony Kennedy--each Justice of the United States, I think, 
has four law clerks every year. I don't know how many tens of thousands 
of lawyers and law students apply, but to be chosen is one of the 
highest honors you can receive as a young lawyer. If I told you this 
person who applied for a job in government used to work at the 
Department of Justice as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in 
the Office of Legal Policy, if I told you she had also worked for one 
of the most prestigious law firms in the country, Wilmer, Cutler, 
Pickering, Hale & Dorr--I remember them as Wilmer, Cutler, but they 
have changed their name since then. They have been around forever. If I 
told you all of those things, I think any reasonable person would say: 
Wow, let's hire her here immediately. Let's do it before she finds 
another position. Well, that person has applied for a job in 
government. Her name is Rachel Brand. She has been nominated by 
President Trump to be Associate Attorney General.
  That is a position that is vitally important within the Department of 
Justice. It is responsible for the oversight of the Civil Division, the 
Civil Rights Division, the Office on Violence Against Women, and many 
other important components of the Department of Justice. I think no 
matter what political party you happen to be in or whatever your 
political persuasion, we can all agree that right now it is 
particularly important not only to have a Department of Justice that is 
fully staffed but to have it fully staffed with extraordinarily 
qualified people whom every American can look at and go: Wow, is she 
qualified. I am so pleased she is working for the Federal Government 
and my tax dollars are being well spent.
  Ms. Brand has broad experience, as I indicated, both within the 
Department of Justice and in the private sector. As I indicated--I am 
going to say it again--she worked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the 
U.S. Supreme Court. Wow, what an honor. She has served as Assistant 
Attorney General under President George Bush. She has been in private 
practice, as I indicated. She has been chief counsel for Regulatory 
Litigation in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and I could go on and on 
and on.
  I fully support Ms. Brand's nomination. I sit on the Judiciary 
Committee, the committee of the Senate that vetted her. She is highly 
respected, she is whip smart, she is well qualified, and she is fully 
prepared to hit the ground running. That is exactly what we need.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.