Opinion

Trump is hiding the number of civilians the U.S. has killed. Congress must act.

Sarah Knuckey is an associate clinical professor of law, director of the Human Rights Clinic and faculty co-director of the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School. Alex Moorehead is director of the Project on Human Rights, Counterterrorism and Armed Conflict and lecturer-in-law at the institute.

Over dinner with his advisers in January 2017, freshly inaugurated President Trump made one of his first significant decisions as president by approving a military raid into Bayda, Yemen. Trump’s subsequent claim that the operation was a resounding success couldn’t have been more wrong: A Navy SEAL was killed, as were nine children under 13 years old, including a 6-year-old girl. After just a few days in office, the new president had already managed to wreak carnage.