The vote was largely symbolic, however, because the House will not be voting on the resolution this year
By Bo Erickson
updated
1H ago
/ CBS News
The U. S. Senate on Thursday passed a resolution to end American armed forces’ support for the Saudi-led coalition in the country. The bipartisan resolution concerning war powers, approved 56-41, represents the first time ever the Senate has voted to revoke military support from a congressionally unauthorized war.
The Senate also passed an amendment, introduced by GOP Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, to ensure that mid-air refueling between U. S. and Saudi Air Force, which the U. S. suspended last month, does not resume. But there’s no chance that lawmakers will stop U. S. support for the Saudis’ prosecution of the Yemen war this year because the House will not vote on the measure before the end of the year.
U. S. involvement in the Yemen conflict began in 2015 when the Obama administration offered logistical assistance in Yemen to Saudi Arabia’s forces fighting against Houthi rebels, who are aligned with Iran. Senators supporting the legislative maneuver Thursday say the 1973 War Powers resolution forbids logistical assistance like this from the U. S. without congressional approval.
After more than four years of fighting, the death toll is now in the tens of thousands, with many of the dead being children suffering from debilitating malnourishment, according to human rights groups. Tens of millions more Yemenis are displaced.
«In a war waged by adults, it is the country’s children who suffer first and suffer most… thousands of Yemeni children could die from severe malnutrition if conditions, including conflict and economic crisis, do not improve soon,» Henrietta Fore, executive director of the U.
