WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s formal request Wednesday for authority to use military force against the Islamic State set the stage for the first broad congressional debate over the administration’s strategy in Syria and Iraq.
Looking toward what could be months of hearings and significant changes in White House language before a final vote, Republicans seeking a broader authority and Democrats hoping to narrow the President’s war options, staked out widely divergent positions.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Obama, is also “going to have to go out and make his case to the American people. The delivery of this authorization is the beginning of a legislative process.”
The requested authorization for the use of military force would permit ongoing airstrikes and U.S. military training for local ground forces in Iraq and Syria for the next three years, while prohibiting “enduring offensive ground combat operations.” It includes no geographic limitations on a possible extension of the war beyond those two countries in pursuit of the Islamic State and “associated persons or forces.”
“It is not the authorization of another ground war, like Afghanistan or Iraq,” Obama said in a White House appearance. But he said it would give him “the flexibility we need for unforeseen circumstances,” including ground deployment of special operations forces for rescue missions and unspecified assistance to local forces.
Many Democrats called that restriction too vague. “It’s a very broad grant of authority ... that leaves wide open the possibility of real engagement of U.S. combat forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
Others said the authority did not go far enough. “The president must articulate and implement a comprehensive strategy that gives our military experts and commanders the agility and authority they need to successfully confront this increasingly dangerous and complex threat,” said Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio. “Today’s request by the president does not meet that criteria.”
Senior Republicans, including Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain of Arizona, whose committee will consider the bill, have said that ground forces might be needed and that nothing should be ruled out in confronting the dire threat posed by the Islamic State.
In a statement late Wednesday, McCain expressed “deep concerns” about what he called Obama’s “narrow definition of strategy” and called the proposal a “recipe for failure.”
McCain and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., met with GOP senators Wednesday to discuss next steps.
Obama, flanked at a White House appearance by Vice President Joe Biden and his secretaries of state and defense, said his strategy of using U.S. and coalition airstrikes against the militants, and bolstering local ground forces to push them back, was succeeding.
“This is a difficult mission, and it will remain difficult for some time,” he said. “But our coalition is on the offensive, ISIL is on the defensive, and ISIL is going to lose.” ISIL is an acronym for the Islamic State.
The new authorization would also repeal the 2002 authorization under which President George W. Bush invaded Iraq, but it would leave in place the 2001 authorization against the al-Qaida perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks. Both have been cited by the Obama administration as legal justification for its military action in Iraq and Syria.
Obama has said the war is likely to continue beyond his administration. Including a three-year limitation on the authorization was “not a timetable,” he said Wednesday. “It is not announcing that the mission is completed at any given period. What it is saying is that Congress should revisit the issue at the beginning of the next president’s term. It’s conceivable that the mission is completed earlier. It’s conceivable that after deliberation, debate and evaluation, that there are additional tasks to be carried out in this area.”
The president did not rule out changes in his proposed language. “I believe this resolution can grow even stronger with the thoughtful and dignified debate that this moment demands,” he said. “I’m optimistic that it can win strong bipartisan support, and that we can show our troops and the world that Americans are united in this mission.”
Democratic proponents of early passage expressed concern that the legislation could be drawn into an extended debate over Obama’s overall foreign policy.
“I’m hoping it takes weeks but not months,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who last year introduced his own authorization bill. “I don’t think either the president or Congress are going to want this hanging out there indefinitely or dying the death of a thousand cuts. Add that to the fact that we’ve been at war already for a year and a half.
“This is not going to be a war strategy document,” Schiff said, “it’s going to be a checks and balances document that sets congressional limits on what we want our president to be doing.”
Congress approves Keystone pipeline
WASHINGTON – The Republican-controlled Congress cleared a bill Wednesday to construct the Keystone XL oil pipeline, setting up a confrontation with President Barack Obama, who has threatened to veto the measure.
The House passed the bill on a 270-152 vote, endorsing changes made by the Senate that stated climate change was real and not a hoax, and oil sands should no longer be exempt from a tax used to cleanup oil spills.
Only one Republican, Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, voted against the measure, while 29 Democrats backed it. But neither the House nor the Senate has enough votes to overcome a veto, the first of many skirmishes between the Democratic White House and Congress on energy and environmental policy.
Supporters were already strategizing on how to secure the pipeline’s approval using other legislative means.
“The evidence is in. The case ought to be closed,” said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, the chief Republican sponsor of the bill, said in a statement, “We will continue to press for approval by attaching an approval measure to another bill, perhaps an energy bill or must-pass appropriations legislation.”
Obama “needs to work with Congress in a bipartisan way and approve the Keystone XL pipeline project for the American people,” he said.
For Republicans, the bill’s passage capped weeks of debate on a top priority after they took control of Congress last month. Hours before the vote, they prodded Democrats who did not take their side. House Republicans, who have debated and passed numerous measures on the pipeline only to have them dead end in the Senate, claimed victory.
