A top GOP leader indicated Thursday that Republican leaders would prefer to postpone the vote on a war powers resolution expected to be debated in the Senate next week, at least until the issue can be more closely studied in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“I think it would be better for the committee to consider it and make a recommendation after having a hearing so everybody understands exactly what the consequences are,” said Texas Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican leader in the chamber.
The resolution was authored by three senators, Mike Lee, Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy in response to the Yemeni war fought between the Saudi-led coalition and Iran-backed Houthis. The U.S. provides military support to the kingdom, including intelligence sharing, logistical support, and mid-flight refueling.
The three senators believe that the refueling and other actions by the U.S. armed forces are akin to “boots on the ground” and that Congress needs to authorize it. They are trying to force a vote on their resolution, which they described as the “first-ever vote in the Senate to withdraw U.S. armed forces from an unauthorized war.”
In a letter to bipartisan Senate leaders, the three senators recently wrote, “For too long, and under both parties, Congress has abdicated its responsibility to provide authorization for the use of military force,” adding that “regardless of what one thinks of our involvement in Yemen, as we enter a fourth year of helping the Saudis prosecute this war it is important that Congress either provides express authorization for our involvement in the conflict or calls on the President to cease operations.”
On Wednesday, Sanders expressed his hope that Congress and the Senate vote next week to get the U.S. to stop its support of Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war, as well as to work on a humanitarian solution and on bringing peace to the region.
Pentagon leaders, on the other hand, oppose the resolution and have argued refueling and the other limited assistance they are providing don’t constitute “hostilities” that need congressional approval.
“We do so much of that with our allies around the world and don’t consider that to be involved in hostilities but simply helping our allies in what they’re doing,” said Senator Bob Corker, chairman of Foreign Relations. “I think if we use the War Powers Act to call these kinds of activities hostilities, we could go down a really slippery slope.”
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