Weeks after<\/u> President Joe Biden announced he would end U.S. support for \u201coffensive\u201d military operations in Yemen by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a group of progressive lawmakers are asking his administration to clarify what forms of U.S. support will continue.<\/p>\n
In his first foreign policy address earlier this month, Biden said<\/a> his administration was \u201cending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.\u201d But he also promised that the U.S. would continue to help Saudi Arabia defend itself against missile attacks, including from Iranian-backed militias like the Houthis in Yemen. In the following weeks, his administration has yet to explain\u00a0how it distinguishes\u00a0between offensive and defensive forms of support.<\/p>\n On Thursday,\u00a041 members of Congress sent a letter <\/a>to Biden expressing support for his decision to limit U.S.\u00a0backing for the war but\u00a0asked him to clarify what forms of \u201cmilitary, intelligence, [and] logistical\u201d support it defines as \u201coffensive” activities and what forms of support will continue.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have said that the United States will \u2018continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people\u2019 from \u2018threats from Iranian-supplied forces in multiple countries,\u2019\u201d the letter says. \u201cWhat activities does this policy entail, and under what legal authority is the administration authorized to engage in such activities?\u201d<\/p>\n The letter was written by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.; Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.; and Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., and signed by\u00a038 others. In a phone interview Wednesday, DeFazio told The Intercept that he wasn\u2019t aware of any formal communication between the Biden administration and Congress about their policy, and said the letter was trying to get answers.<\/p>\n \u201cThat raises questions that we would like to have answered,\u201d DeFazio said. \u201cHow do you define weapons? What\u2019s the difference between an offensive weapon or a defensive weapon? Congress has acted a number of times to block arms sales to the Saudis. So we just have a number of questions. We think it\u2019s obviously a tremendous improvement over the position of the Trump administration. We would just like more clarification, more detail about what the shift means and also what [legal] authority they\u2019re depending upon to continue to be involved in this conflict in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n Khanna\u00a0told The Intercept that he had informal conversations with Biden administration officials about how they interpret \u201coffensive\u201d operations, but he wanted the administration to clarify the details with Congress as a \u201cformal statement of administration policy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy understanding is that the ban on any\u00a0U.S. participation in Saudi military strikes applies very broadly to any Saudi bombing or missile strikes into Yemen,\u201d Khanna said. \u201cThere is no wiggle room for the Saudis to claim they\u2019re attacking a place in Yemen out of self-defense. That is my understanding of how the administration intends the directive.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about the letter, a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council referred The Intercept to the Department of Defense and the State Department for comment. A spokesperson for the Department of Defense did not respond, and spokespersons for the State Department and director of national intelligence declined to comment.<\/p>\n The letter comes as the Biden administration is expected to release a long-awaited intelligence report on the 2018 assassination<\/a> of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. The report is likely to serve as a reminder of Saudi Arabia\u2019s human<\/a> rights record<\/a> and could reopen old wounds about the direct involvement<\/a> of the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. After the assassination in 2018, Congress passed measures\u00a0to block arms sales and direct President Donald Trump to cut off U.S. support for the war in Yemen, but he vetoed<\/a> them.<\/p>\n Biden\u00a0is expected to call King Salman of Saudi Arabia, MBS\u2019s father, to discuss the U.S.-Saudi relationship\u00a0before the release of the Khashoggi report. As a candidate, Biden took a much harsher line on arms sales, saying in a November 2019\u00a0primary debate<\/a> that \u201cthere is very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia and the UAE began their intervention in March 2015, after an Iranian-backed rebel group overran the country\u2019s\u00a0capital, Sanaa. Under the Obama and Trump administrations, the U.S. supported the intervention with arms sales and intelligence, even as the Saudi air force bombed civilian targets, like markets, schools, and medical clinics. The Trump administration cut off midair refueling<\/a> for Saudi warplanes in 2018, but other forms of U.S. support continued.<\/p>\n Last month the Biden administration paused all arms sales to Saudi and the UAE, with Secretary of State Tony Blinken citing<\/a> a desire \u201cto make sure that what is being considered is something that advances our strategic objectives, and advances our foreign policy.\u201d Those sales included a massive\u00a0$23 billion transfer<\/a> of advanced weapons technology \u2014 including the F35 fighter jet and Reaper drones \u2014 to the UAE as part of the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cAbraham Accords.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter from members of Congress questions what weapons the administration deems \u201crelevant\u201d to offensive operations and whether the $23 billion sale will go forward.<\/p>\n In the past, Saudi officials have claimed their airstrikes were acts of self-defense against the Houthis, who themselves have carried out missile attacks<\/a> against targets in southern Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n Max Abrahms, a professor of political science at Northeastern University and a critic of the U.S. intervention, told The Intercept the Democrats who signed the letter are\u00a0right to question the Biden administration. \u201cThe distinction between offensive and defensive weapons is often unclear,\u201d Abrahms said in a phone interview. \u201cWhich weapons are offensive or defensive depends on one\u2019s own perspective in this conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter also contains a detailed list of questions about Biden\u2019s other policies toward Yemen, including whether the U.S. will pressure the UAE and Saudi Arabia to stop arming and financing different militias there, and whether it would support an independent investigation into allegations of disappearances and torture by UAE-backed forces \u2014 which the Trump administration denied knowledge<\/a> of in 2019.<\/p>\n The post Democrats Pressure Biden on U.S. Backing for Saudi War in Yemen<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Progressive lawmakers sent Biden a letter seeking details on his plan to halt U.S. aid for offensive military operations in Yemen.<\/p>\n The post Democrats Pressure Biden on U.S. Backing for Saudi War in Yemen<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[383,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53239"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53240,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53239\/revisions\/53240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cWhat\u2019s the difference between an offensive weapon or a defensive weapon?\u201d<\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0\u201cWhich weapons are offensive or defensive depends on one\u2019s own perspective in this conflict.\u201d<\/blockquote><\/p>\n