[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 186 (Tuesday, November 14, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7190-S7192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Yemen Humanitarian Crisis

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, my colleagues, cholera is a truly awful 
way to die. It is a manmade disease, a man-caused disease that this 
world could easily eradicate from existence. You become so dehydrated, 
you vomit so much liquid, your body dispenses so many nutrients, so 
much water through unending diarrhea, that your body is thrown into 
shock. You literally die from vomiting and diarrhea, sometimes over the 
course of hours, sometimes over the course of days, sometimes over the 
course of weeks.
  Inside Yemen today, by the end of this year, there will be 1 million 
people diagnosed with cholera.
  This picture I have in the Chamber is a hard image to see. I will 
replace it with this one.
  One million people will be diagnosed with cholera. Thousands and 
thousands inside Yemen today are dying because of this disease. There 
is a humanitarian catastrophe inside this country--which very few 
people in this Nation can locate on a map--of absolutely epic 
proportions. This humanitarian catastrophe, this famine--one of four 
famines across the world today--is being caused in part by actions of 
the United States of America, and it is time that we do something about 
it as a body.
  As we speak today, the Saudi-led coalition that has been engaged in 
an incessant 2-year bombing campaign in Yemen is blockading Yemen, not 
allowing any humanitarian relief, not allowing fuel or food or water to 
get into the country.
  The coalition's blockade has grounded U.N. flights. It has prevented 
humanitarian workers from flying in and out of the country. It has 
barred ships from delivering lifesaving food, fuel, and medical 
supplies. A 25,000-metric-ton World Food Programme ship is currently, 
as we speak, being denied access to the port. As we speak today, 
hospitals and aid organizations inside Yemen are shutting down because 
they do not have enough fuel to continue operating. Vaccines will run 
out in the country by the end of the month. Prices for food and 
medicine are spiking such that they are unaffordable to the majority of 
Yemenis. Because of cholera alone, 2,000 people have died. Thousands of 
other civilians have died because of other humanitarian nightmares, 
including a lack of access to the medical system.
  I mentioned that the blockade is being run by the Saudi-led 
coalition. The United States is a member of that coalition. For 2 
years, the United States has been aiding the Government of Saudi Arabia 
in a bombing campaign of the Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. That 
bombing campaign caused this outbreak of cholera. Why is that? The 
bombing campaign deliberately targeted the electricity grid of Yemen in 
and around Sana'a, the capital controlled today by the Houthis. The 
water treatment facility runs on the electricity from that grid.
  As you can read in a lengthy story in the New York Times from 2 days 
ago, the country no longer has the ability to treat water that goes to 
its capital because the Saudi-led bombing campaign has knocked out 
electricity. The fuel that has helped temporarily run the water 
treatment facility is no longer available either because the Saudi-led 
bombing campaign has targeted the infrastructure that allows for fuel 
to be delivered. So today the water is undrinkable. It is toxic. Yet, 
because there aren't other supplies of water, millions of Yemenis are 
ingesting it. They are eating food that is also toxic because of the 
inability to treat water, because of the flow of sewage and feces 
throughout the capital city, and almost 1 million people have 
contracted cholera.
  That bombing campaign that targeted the electricity infrastructure in 
Yemen could only happen with U.S. support. It is the United States that 
provides the targeting assistance for the Saudi planes. It is U.S. 
refueling planes flying in the sky around Yemen that restock the Saudi 
fighter jets with fuel, allowing them to drop more ordnance. It is 
U.S.-made and transferred ordnance that is carried on these planes and 
dropped on civilian and infrastructure targets inside Yemen.
  The United States is part of this coalition. The bombing campaign 
that has caused the cholera outbreak could not happen without us. The 
official position of the State Department with respect to the 
blockade--which was imposed by the Saudis about a week ago--is that 
they should end it, at least for the purposes of allowing humanitarian 
resources into the country. That has not happened.
  As I mentioned, there is literally a World Food Programme ship right 
now with 25,000 metric tons of food waiting to get into the capital to 
help families like this. So although that may be the official position 
of the State Department, we clearly aren't articulating that position 
to the Saudis because the Saudi blockade--which happens with U.S. 
military support--continues. Maybe that is because the State Department 
and the White House are simply operating on two different planets.

[[Page S7191]]

  While on his trip to Asia, President Trump said that he has full 
confidence in the Saudi King, that he knows what he is doing. Let me 
tell you what he is doing. He is using starvation and disease as a 
weapon of war, which is in contravention of international human rights 
law. You cannot use starvation. You cannot intentionally cause this 
kind of disease in order to try to win a military conflict. So maybe 
the Saudis do know what they are doing, but what they are doing is a 
gross violation of human rights law.
  It would be one thing if the United States were a mere observer, but 
we are a participant in this. This horror--I am sorry, it is hard to 
see--is caused in part by our decision to facilitate a bombing campaign 
that is murdering children and to endorse a Saudi strategy inside Yemen 
that is deliberately using disease and starvation and the withdrawal of 
humanitarian support as a tactic.
  Last night, the House of Representatives passed a nonbinding 
resolution making clear that there is no legal authorization for U.S. 
participation in the Saudi-led campaign against the Yemeni people. 
Importantly, the resolution also made clear that there are multiple bad 
actors in Yemen today. The vast majority of cholera cases today--I 
think upwards of 80 percent--are in Houthi-controlled areas. But the 
Houthis do not have clean hands, and their patrons, the Iranians, do 
not have clean hands. There have been human rights abuses and attacks 
on civilian targets by the Houthi forces as well.
  The Iranians should stand down immediately, as should the Saudis, as 
they continue to whip up this proxy war between regional powers that is 
killing civilians inside Yemen, but without U.S. leadership in the 
region, there is no hope for that stand-down to happen.
  In the Obama administration, at least Secretary Kerry was actively, 
personally engaged in trying to bring some resolution to the civil war 
inside Yemen. But since President Trump took office and Secretary 
Tillerson became Secretary of State, there is zero U.S. leadership on 
this question. We don't have an Assistant Secretary of State for the 
Middle East. We don't have any envoy for this crisis. All we have is a 
President who says that the Saudi Government knows what it is doing.
  That kind of unconditional endorsement of intentional humanitarian 
pain is un-American. We have stood up time and time again for human 
rights all across the world. We have been the people who deliver 
humanitarian salvation to people who are at risk of disease and famine 
and death. And instead of rescuing the people of Yemen during this 
moment of blockade, we are contributing to the deterioration of the 
quality of life inside that country.
  The Saudi blockade needs to end today. And a partial lifting of the 
blockade is not enough. This morning, the coalition did say they are 
going to allow some humanitarian access to the ports they control, but 
we need access to the ports near where the majority of the population 
actually lives--Hudaydah and Saleef. Allowing access to the ports that 
the Saudis control--which are not the ports where the majority of 
humanitarian aid flows through--is not sufficient. It will not do the 
job. Medicine and vaccinations will continue to dry up. Price spikes 
will continue to go through the roof. The cholera epidemic will 
continue.
  We have a responsibility as a nation to ensure that the coalition, of 
which we are a part, is not using starvation as a weapon of war. This 
will be a stain on the conscience of our Nation if we continue to 
remain silent. I hope the Senate takes the same action that the House 
did. I hope we make clear that there is no legal authorization for the 
United States to be part of a war inside Yemen. Congress has not given 
the authorization for this President to engage in these military 
activities.
  By the way, the civil war inside Yemen has aided the enemies we 
actually have declared war against. Al-Qaida is getting stronger inside 
Yemen because, as more and more of the country becomes ungovernable 
because of this war, al-Qaida is moving into that territory. ISIS--
against which we have not declared war, but we are engaged in active 
military activity in the region--is getting stronger there too.
  So even if you don't believe there is a humanitarian imperative 
attached to U.S. withdrawal from this coalition, there is a national 
security imperative because we are just strengthening the most lethal 
elements of the extremist movement worldwide.
  I know many other Members of this body on both sides of the aisle 
feel as strongly about this as I do. We are not going to get leadership 
on this question from the administration. They have given a blank check 
to the Saudis. They have turned a blind eye to this epidemic inside 
Yemen--an epidemic that is getting worse by the day since the Saudi 
blockade began. Leadership will have to come from this body.
  We need to make clear to the administration that they do not have the 
authority to continue to participate in this military coalition. We 
need to press the administration to tell the Saudis to end this 
blockade. We need to start using our ability as appropriators and 
authorizers to send messages to the Saudis that this kind of conduct 
cannot continue. We have tools at our disposal to lead as a Congress on 
this question--the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe happening 
right now, as we speak, getting worse by the hour inside Yemen. This 
Congress, this Senate, cannot remain silent.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose Steven Bradbury's 
nomination to serve as general counsel at the Department of 
Transportation.
  The general counsel position at DOT oversees and makes critical 
judgments about legal work that impacts public safety, development, and 
innovation that drives our economy. Unfortunately, Mr. Bradbury's 
previous actions during his time at the Department of Justice showed 
that he lacks the judgment and commitment to our shared values that are 
a prerequisite for any lawyer privileged to serve the people of the 
United States of America.
  During his time as the acting head of the Department of Justice's 
Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Bradbury was one of three primary lawyers 
who helped lay the groundwork for the Bush administration's defense of 
what they described as ``enhanced interrogation techniques.'' The so-
called torture memos that Mr. Bradbury helped write were used to 
justify the Bush administration's decision to use torture that included 
extreme sleep deprivation, cramped confinement, and waterboarding. Mr. 
Bradbury helped find legal loopholes that were an affront to our 
American values. And he failed to fulfill the special responsibility 
all lawyers have to the quality of justice in our legal system.

  Mr. Bradbury's past government service reflects a lack of sound legal 
judgment. In fact, a 2009 review by the Department of Justice raised 
questions about the objectivity and reasonableness of the conclusions 
found in the memos he authored. Rather than standing up for our values 
and laws, Mr. Bradbury deferred to the wishes and pressure of the 
President he was serving.
  Furthermore, during his confirmation hearing, when referring to his 
legal justification for these so-called enhanced interrogation 
techniques, Mr. Bradbury stated: ``If I had my druthers, I wouldn't 
have engaged in having to address those issues.''
  If Mr. Bradbury preferred to not engage in tough legal questions at 
the time, then he should not have been serving in the Office of Legal 
Counsel, and he should not be confirmed for a general counsel position 
now. By definition, the job of general counsel is to deal with 
difficult legal questions.
  It is clear Mr. Bradbury is unwilling to provide the sound legal 
judgement and impartiality necessary for this role. He has 
demonstrated, in the past, that his legal analysis is flawed, he lacks 
a commitment to America's values, and his actions have had truly 
dangerous implications for our Nation.
  I will oppose this nomination, and I urge my colleagues to do the 
same.
  I yield the floor.

[[Page S7192]]