White House clashes with Senate Democrats over Saudi weapons bill

Saudi-led strikes have been called war crimes

Similar resolutions passed the Senate in 2018 and 2019, during the Trump administration, with support of all Democratic senators. In 2019, the measure won the support of both chambers of Congress, but not enough to override a veto by President Donald Trump.

Now those efforts have been renewed. President Biden’s White House also opposes the measure, putting the president in the unusual position of standing against an effort to punish a Saudi regime that has been anything but friendly to him.

But Biden aides say the president is opposing the resolution for different reasons than Trump did. The current version of Sanders’s measure differs from the previous versions, particularly in defining intelligence-sharing and support operations as “hostilities.” That could have dire consequences for U.S. operations globally, some congressional aides say, including in such hot spots as Ukraine.

“It really has made us nervous,” said one senior Democratic aide, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The changes “could have real ramifications for our support for Ukraine right now, or our support for Israel,” the aide said. “This is the first time that the Congress is being asked to vote on defining hostility as intelligence-sharing, and it’s dangerous.”

The White House is concerned enough that it distributed talking points to senators ahead of a scheduled vote Tuesday night, arguing that the resolution would endanger a fragile pause in the hostilities between the Saudi-led faction in Yemen and the country’s Houthi rebels. The talking points acknowledged that senators might be reluctant to switch their positions after taking a forceful stance in favor of the resolution just three years ago.

“We know that it is a difficult decision to change a vote, but the circumstances are fundamentally different than they were in 2019, and a vote would undermine the possibility that we can finally bring an end to this war and the humanitarian suffering of the people of Yemen,” the documents said. “If this resolution were presented to the President, his staff will recommend the President veto it. The stakes are too high.”

The White House cited a nine-month halt in fighting and pointed to ongoing U.S. diplomacy that it said was not in place three years ago. “The bottom line is that this resolution is unnecessary and would greatly complicate the intense and ongoing diplomacy to truly bring an end to the conflict,” the talking points…