“To not let that be undermined by some false emergency and to preserve that institutional right, regardless of who sits in the White House.”The White House announced the sales late last month, and invoked an emergency provision in the Arms Export Control Act to allow American companies to sell $8.1 billion worth of munitions in 22 pending transfers to the three Arab nations. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are waging an air war in Yemen that has come under sharp criticism from Congress and human rights organizations. Members of Congress from both parties have been holding up arms sales from American companies to Persian Gulf nations and trying to end American military support for the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has resulted in what the United Nations calls the world’s worst man-made humanitarian disaster. By declaring an emergency over Iran, the administration was able to override those holds. “If we let this emergency declaration go without protest, without a vote, I don’t know that we’re ever getting the power to oversee arms sales back as a body,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, and one of the authors of the resolution.

Source: New York Times June 20, 2019 16:10 UTC