Who is to blame when bombs kill civilians?
The conflict in Yemen has become an albatross for the United States, and maybe worse. Human Rights Watch, the research and advocacy group, says that America may be complicit in war crimes.
Technically, the United States is not a combatant in the air war launched one year ago by a Saudi-led Sunni Arab coalition in support of the Yemen government against Houthi rebels, members of a Shiite Muslim group. But America plays important, even indispensable, roles.
It is a major arms supplier to the Saudis, now the world’s number three arms purchaser. The United States also provides other critical support to the coalition in the form of intelligence from reconnaissance drones and air craft refueling via airborne fuel tankers. To coordinate the assistance, the Americans have deployed a 45-person military planning group with personnel in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
As the war drags on, Saudi Arabia has come under growing international criticism for indiscriminate airstrikes that have hit markets, hospitals, schools and homes. The United Nations says that coalition airstrikes have caused the vast majority of civilian deaths.
In a report released last week, Human Rights Watch said fragments of two American-made bombs were found in the wreckage of a coalition airstrike on crowded market in the northern district of Mastaba last month in which 97 civilians, including 25 children, were killed. It was one of the war’s deadliest attacks.The group’s researchers examined bomb fragments, as well as photographs and video footage provided by ITV, a British news channel, and concluded that the Saudis used two 2,000 pound bombs known as the MK-84, the largest of its class. American warplanes typically carry smaller bombs, in the range of 500 pounds, in part because they want to reduce property damage and dangers to civilians. If confirmed, the use of a 2,000-pound bomb would suggest the Saudis accepted the likelihood of significant damage to civilians.
International humanitarian law, which the United States helped establish, prohibits deliberate attacks on civilians and indiscriminate attacks, which do not distinguish between military targets and civilians. Belkis Wille, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who focuses on Yemen and researched the incident, told The Times that the Americans may not have known the Saudis would use the weapons against civilians when the bombs were sold. Washington has provided MK-84s bombs in previous arms sales, “but you can’t prove” the two used in the market attack were part of any recent sale, she said.
Rather, American culpability turns on whether the United States provided targeting assistance or aerial refueling to the coalition during these particular airstrikes. Various administration officials have acknowledged that the United States is providing targeting and refueling help to the Saudis but it is unclear whether the Americans are assisting with every airstrike or some portion of airstrikes, she added.
In an email to The Times, a spokesman for the United States Central Command said decisions on “final vetting of targets” are made by the coalition, not the United States. But does that absolve Washington of responsibility? In conversations with administration officials in recent months, I have discerned considerable discomfort with the way in which the Saudis are conducting and prolonging the war, as well as concerns about score-settling against Houthi rebels.
Americans deserve to know more clearly just what role their government is playing in the Yemen war. The United States and Saudi Arabia both have an obligation to investigate alleged war crimes by their armed forces, the rights group said. If the Saudi government cannot be more disciplined in its use of devastating weapons, the United States should consider halting arms sales to the government in Riyadh, as the European Parliament has urged European governments to do.
The conflict has already killed more than 6,200 people and triggered a humanitarian crisis in one of the Arab world’s poorest countries. On Sunday night, rival sides began a tentative truce; they need to make it permanent.