U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said he welcomes an apparent Pentagon decision to suspend its refueling of Saudi Arabia’s military aircraft involved in the war in Yemen. But he said more needs to be done to stop the Saudi war effort and that his colleagues have now turned hostile to Saudi Arabia following the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
“Now that we saw them clearly lie to our face for two weeks in the face of clear evidence that they had murdered Khashoggi, it has caused many of my colleagues to rethink whether the Saudis are telling us the truth with respect to their targeting inside of Yemen, which may lead to a different vote on war powers or arms sales than we saw earlier.”
The war powers bill would stop any U.S. support for the Saudi war effort without congressional approval. The arms sales bill would prohibit the sale of U.S. precision guided missiles to Saudi Arabia. Murphy said he expects the bills to be brought back for a vote before the end of the year.
The U.S. military has been refueling about 20 percent of all Saudi aircraft that fly as part of the operation in Yemen.