“Obviously there are pressures in our system ... to either withdraw from the conflict or discontinue our support of the coalition, which we are strongly opposed to on the administration side,” said Timothy Lenderking, Deputy Assistant Secretary for (Persian) Gulf Affairs.
“We do believe that the support for the coalition is necessary. It sends a wrong message if we discontinue our support,” he told a security forum in the United Arab Emirates.
Last month, the US Senate voted to advance a resolution calling for an end to US military support for the Saudi-led coalition, including arms sales and intelligence sharing.
It came in the wake of the gruesome murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate on October 2.
The war on Yemen has so far killed thousands of civilians and destroyed the impoverished country’s infrastructure, exposing millions of people to starvation, lack of medicines and cholera outbreaks.
Some 8.4 million Yemenis are facing starvation as a result of the Saudi-led aggression, although the United Nations has warned that will probably rise to 14 million.
Three-quarters of impoverished Yemen’s population, or 22 million people, require aid.