Trump recently vetoed a resolution aiming to end US support for the Saudi-led war, claiming it would weaken his status as commander-in-chief and that Washington's support for Saudi Arabia "does not amount to engaging in hostilities".
"In reality, the Saudi bombing campaign would be unsustainable without that US support, or the continuing sale of bombs and other material," The WaPo's editorial board said in an opinion piece.
"That makes the Trump administration complicit in the continuing atrocities, such as the latest school and hospital bombings," it added.
The Washington Post's editorial board noted that Congress needs to look for other ways to force a change in US policy toward the government led by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, “whose record of extraordinary recklessness in foreign policy has been matched by unprecedented domestic repression”.
It stated that the ideal approach would be to address both issues, which are intertwined, and this is the strategy of a bipartisan Senate bill. In addition to suspending arms transfers to the kingdom until it ends its campaign in Yemen, the bill seeks to force accountability for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, who was murdered last October after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Riyadh initially denied any knowledge of his whereabouts. But following a rising number of contradictions in its narrative, it sought to blame the journalist's death on a botched rendition operation being carried out by rogue agents.
"Handing a free pass to the crown prince after US intelligence agencies have concluded he was responsible for the Khashoggi murder would be an invitation to further atrocities," it said.
The daily added that while the bill has a good chance of passing, the Republican leadership, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch, has not yet allowed a vote.
The United States has provided billions of dollars of arms to the Saudi-led coalition waging a devastating war in Yemen. A report by CNN had revealed that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had transferred US-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked militants, extremist militias and other groups on the ground.
The United Nations has warned that the situation in war-ravaged Yemen is further deteriorating as the Arab country is facing the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world.
“The humanitarian crisis in Yemen remains the worst in the world,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Ansarullah movement.
Weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals, as well as water and electricity plants, have been targeted, killing and wounding thousands.
Official UN figures say that more than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led bombing campaign began in March 2015. But the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) believes that at least 56,000 people have lost their lives in the war. The violence has also left around two-thirds of Yemen’s population of 27 million relying on aid amid an ongoing strict naval and aerial blockade. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.
Save the Children, a charity, has reported that more than 84,700 children under the age of five may have starved to death in Yemen since the Saudi regime and a coalition of its allies launched the brutal war on the already-impoverished nation.
Yemen is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with more than 22 million people in need and is seeing a spike in needs, fuelled by ongoing conflict, a collapsing economy and diminished social services and livelihoods.
A number of Western countries, the US, the UK, and France in particular, are accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.
An Oxfam representative stated that the US, UK, and French governments are behind millions of people starving in Yemen because they are “supporting this war".
“We have 14 million people starving,” Richard Stanforth, Oxfam UK’s regional policy officer for the Middle East, told RT, adding that "British, French, American governments are all behind this, they are all supporting this war".
A UN panel has compiled a detailed report of civilian casualties caused by the Saudi military and its allies during their war against Yemen, saying the Riyadh-led coalition has used precision-guided munitions in its raids on civilian targets