State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert refused to condemn Thursday’s coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen, which left as many as 50 people dead and 63 injured, most of whom were children.
The bus was in the Dahyan Market in northern Sa’ada, a Houthi rebel stronghold, when it was attacked on Thursday morning. The red cross confirmed that many of the children were under the age of 10.
Zero Hedge reports: During the State Department’s daily press briefing, Nauert was asked point blank by journalists, starting with the AP’s Matt Lee, whether the US condemns the attack.
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The whole testy exchange on Yemen is worth watching, especially as Matt Lee lays out the case for direct US complicity in the attack on the bus packed with children from the start of his question: “The Saudis obviously are the ones who conducted this, but they do that with weapons supplied by the U.S., with training supplied by the U.S., and with targeting information, targeting data, supplied by the U.S. How can something like this happen?” he said.
Watch the State Department’s response here:
State Dept’s Heather Nauert is not willing to condemn the Saudis for their airstrike on a schoolbus earlier today that killed over 50 children in Northern #Yemen. She wants to wait for the Saudis to conduct their own investigation into the attack. Shameful. pic.twitter.com/ixo57tzfRk
— Walid (@walid970721) August 9, 2018
Unbelievably, Nauert tried to obfuscate the issue by simply saying “I can’t confirm all the details because we are not there on the ground.”
Not only did Nauert refuse to say the State Department condemned the attack, but wouldn’t so much as agree to simply call for an independent investigation into the incident (she called only for a Saudi-led inquiry).
Nauert drew random incredulous expressions of laughter from the press pool by the end of the segment on Yemen when she was caught struggling to acknowledge the long established fact that the US supplies “a tremendous amount of weaponry and the data for targeting to the Saudis” while simultaneously touting that Washington provides “a tremendous amount of humanitarian assistance.”
