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A retired U.S. general said the U.S. had been too passive toward the Houthis, allowing them to control the Red Sea, and should have instead gone after their leaders.
“We were too passive,” Kenneth F. McKenzie, former head of U.S. Central Command, said in an interview with CBS. Face the Nation on sunday.
“By effectively closing the Suez Canal, we have allowed the Houthis to control global maritime traffic,” he said.
The Houthis have used drones and missiles to target shipping in the Red Sea corridor to pressure Israel and the West over the war in Gaza.
As a result, major sea lanes had to be patrolled by U.S. Navy carrier strike groups and European warships.
The U.S. Navy’s Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group has spent months battling the Houthis in key shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to ensure safe passage for international merchant ships.
A US strike force made up of an aircraft carrier and several other warships has pursued more than 400 Houthi targets in dozens of defensive operations, according to data provided to Business Insider by Navy officials last month.
But McKenzie, who oversaw high-profile special forces raids in Syria in 2019 to kill or capture then-IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said the US is essentially “just poking and not throwing” in the Red Sea, despite having “billion-dollar warships” deployed there.
He acknowledged that the U.S. Navy had stepped up its use of munitions, but said the source of the attacks needed to be pursued: Houthi leadership and command and control facilities in Yemen.
“I would argue that if these attacks were carried out, the risk of escalation is very small,” McKenzie said.
The sheer number of ships involved in the battle in the area makes it the largest battle the U.S. Navy has fought in since World War II, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper told “60 Minutes” in February.
That same month, Maj. Gen. Mark Miguez, commander of the U.S. Strike Group, told BI that there were aircraft in the skies “constantly.”
“This is a huge effort,” Miguez said.
be post The Houthis will be difficult to weaken or deter, in part because Iran is backing them with weapons but also because the Houthis have used the conflict to shore up support inside Yemen, according to the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
Yemeni army spokesman Yahya Saree vowed to continue attacks until Israeli “aggression” in Gaza stops. From Reuters.
Last month, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the Houthi threat was likely to persist for the foreseeable future and warned that the conflict could become protracted.
In a February analysis, BI defence correspondent Michael Peck said the US could suffer the same fate as Egypt, which sent 70,000 troops to Yemen in the 1960s and waged a relentless bombing campaign but failed to crush the group.