A new leak revealing a State Department split about the U.S. policy of helping Saudi Arabia fight in Yemen shows the U.S. policy could be on the verge of unraveling, according to a top Senate Democrat.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo informed Congress last week that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates “are undertaking demonstrable actions” to avoid civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict, which pits an Arab-led coalition against Iranian-backed rebels. Pompeo’s certification allows the U.S. military to continue refueling Saudi aircraft and providing other logistical support, despite the humanitarian concerns.
But subsequent reports suggest that he did so over the objections of much of his regional policy team.
“This insight suggests that individuals in the executive branch are increasingly aware that maintaining the status quo of current U.S. policy on Yemen is difficult to defend,” New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Menendez provided that view following a report that the State Department’s military and regional experts opposed the idea of telling Congress that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are working to avoid civilian casualties. “Pompeo backed continued U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen over the objections of staff members after being warned that a cutoff could jeopardize $2 billion in weapons sales to America’s Gulf allies,” according to a Wall Street Journal report. The deal involved the sale of more than 120,000 precision-guided munitions from weapons contractor Raytheon to the two Arab countries.
Trump’s team has developed plans for major arms sales packages to Saudi Arabia as part of an effort to supply a so-called “Arab NATO” that could ward off Iranian hegemony in the Middle East.
“While our Saudi and Emirati partners are making progress, we are continuing discussions with them on additional steps they can take to address the humanitarian situation, advance the political track in cooperation with the U.N. Special Envoy’s efforts, and ensure that their military campaign complies with the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told the Journal, after declining to confirm details of “the deliberative process or allegedly leaked documents.”
It’s the second time since August that Nauert has had to fend off questions about the department’s internal debates. Most recently, leaked documents showed the Pompeo team mulling whether to use the term “genocide” when describing the massacre of an ethnic Muslim minority in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
“And it’s a real disappointment, I want to say, when colleagues, professionals leak deliberative documents,” Nauert said at an Aug. 15 press briefing. “It harms our ability to make decisions, to have free conversations among our colleagues about certain issues in the news, certain things that we need to make very important decisions about.”
Menendez, who said that he has been waiting “three months” for a reply to a letter about U.S. involvement in Yemen, welcomed the report, leaked or not.
“If true, it is reassuring to know that so many bureaus within the State Department were united against certifying to Congress that the Saudi and Emirati governments are undertaking demonstrable actions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure resulting from military operations in Yemen,” he said.
