Democrat: Leaked Messages Show Waltz Admitting to War Crime in Yemen Strike
J.D. Vance said it was “excellent” that a strike collapsed a building. Thirteen civilians died, according to one count.
Trump administration officials effectively admitted to and celebrated a war crime when discussing the U.S.’s airstrikes on Yemen earlier this month, a House Democrat and policy experts have said, citing newly leaked messages published by The Atlantic.
On Wednesday, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg published a full group chat exchange he had previewed in an article on Monday, in which numerous high-level officials coordinated and discussed the U.S.’s airstrikes on Yemen earlier this month. Wednesday’s exposé came as a response to Trump officials insisting that classified information was not shared in the chat — despite the messages including what are clearly secretive high-level discussions on war plans.
“Another disgusting part of all of this is the proof [of] a blatant war crime to which the Vice President of the United States responded: Excellent,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Florida, on social media on Wednesday.
In an exchange after the strikes first hit, as shown in Wednesday’s leak, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz says that the U.S. had collapsed a building that one of their Houthi targets was supposedly inside, calling it “amazing.”
“Their first target — their top missile guy — we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and now it’s collapsed,” Waltz said.
Per the screenshots, Vice President J.D. Vance responds, “Excellent.” CIA Director John Ratcliffe says, “A good start.” Waltz then replies with a fist emoji, a U.S. flag emoji and a flame emoji.
According to Yemen Data Project, the first strike killed at least 13 civilians and injured nine on the night of March 15, hitting north of the capital, Sanaa. Yemen Data Project says that this was the bombing deemed “excellent” by the vice president and “amazing” by Waltz.
The messages are “prima facie evidence of at least one war crime applauded by the people who conspired to commit it,” wrote Dylan Williams, Vice President for Government Affairs for the Center for International Policy (CIP), on social media.
“Rules of engagement that permit destroying an entire civilian apartment building to kill one alleged terrorist is part of Joe Biden’s legacy,” wrote Matt Duss, CIP’s executive vice president. “It’s still a war crime though, and Waltz’s text is a confession.”
International law mandates that combatants must not deliberately target civilians in war, and that they must avoid targeting civilian infrastructure even if there is a military objective. Houthi officials have condemned the U.S’s recent attacks as a war crime. Progressive lawmakers have noted that the U.S. has been bombing Yemen for a decade despite Congress having never formally declared war, making the aggression unconstitutional as well.
The U.S. launched over 47 air strikes on Yemen between March 15 and 16. Yemenis reported numerous strikes on residential buildings. In the Ibb governorate, the U.S. targeted two residential buildings, killing at least 15, per Al Jazeera, while 15 others were killed when the U.S. struck a residential area in the capital.
The bombings killed 53 people in total. At least 25 of them were civilians, per Yemen Data Project, including four children; Yemeni officials have counted more than 30 civilian deaths. The majority of strikes targeted civilian sites, Yemen Data Project said — including a strike on a newly built cancer hospital that the U.S. bombed once again this week.
Drop Site reported that the bombing of the hospital threw the facility into chaos, with children screaming due to their injuries, while some “small victims were charred beyond recognition.” The U.S.’s strikes on the hospital this week have reportedly destroyed the facility.