US Defense Secretary Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis backed Pompeo’s finding.
US Representative Ro Khanna responded:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yeme ... SKCN1LS1XRPompeo’s ‘certification’ is a farce. The Saudis deliberately bombed a bus full of children. There is only one moral answer, and that is to end our support for their intervention in Yemen.
In a 3 hour debate in the British House of Commons, UK Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt also defended Britain's arms sales to Saudi Arabia saying it was "right" to do so. The Foreign Office minister also said he believes that Saudi Arabia has not breached international law during the conflict, and stressed that MPs need to acknowledge “the threat” posed by Houthi “rebels”.
On Emily Thornberry’s question whether UK arms have been used to kill civilians in Yemen, Burt admitted that “he could not answer” and claimed “there was no feasible way of determining if British ordinance was used by Saudi Arabia”.
MP Alison Thewliss criticised British report for the war against Yemen:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/brit ... -755945369Important to first note that the people paying the price for this conflict are the people least responsible for it, and it is the children of Yemen.
In this three-hour debate, 18 children will have died. Imagine them lined up in front of this green bench. How many more?
The children dying in Yemen could sadly fill this chamber in no time at all.
With the backing of Britain and the US, Saudi UN ambassador Abdulaziz al-Wasil completely rejected the findings and conclusions of the recent GEE report by the UN, which concluded that the coalition deliberately targets civilians in Yemen. The GEE report points out that these attacks lack a clear military objective and utilise precision-guided missiles which indicate that civilians are intentionally targeted.
The GEE report also describes torture and sexual abuse against children, women, and men, throughout secret detention centres under US-backed Emirati control.
Al-Wasil said Saudi Arabia will submit a comprehensive legal response against the UNHRC “exposing the falsehoods presented in the report”.
The GEE report “forgets” to mention the more than 250,000 deaths from the land, sea, and air blockade by the “coalition”, which has put 22 million of Yemen’s 29 million population on the brink of famine. The blockade has also severely limited access to medical care.
Yemeni UN ambassador Ali al-Majawar (of the so-called “internationally recognised government”) also addressed the UNHRC. Al-Majawar claims that the Ansarullah delegation (a.k.a. Houthi) deliberately didn’t attend peace talks, scheduled 6 September in Geneva, because they don’t want to participate in any peace process.
The special UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, admitted that the Houthis did everything in their power to attend the peace talks but the “coalition” prevented their arrival in Geneva:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/unhrc-sau ... en/249253/I think it is important to know that Ansarullah also wanted to be here and that they are disappointed not to be here, and it is important to make that point very clear. We have had extensive discussions with their representatives in Sana’a and in Muscat this past week, and I have no doubt about that, whatever you may think. And they are very keen to take this process forward, and so is the international community who are remarkably united.
(archived here: http://archive.is/1a5rj)