At an annual budget hearing before the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry was asked to provide clarity on the administration’s recently proposed Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the Islamic State (ISIL).
Many lawmakers worry the bill sought by the administration is too broadly written, and could lead to another decade of costly and counterproductive US military commitment in the Middle East. Acting as their de facto spokesperson, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) asked Kerry to explain what the ban on “enduring offensive ground combat operations” in the White House-backed AUMF actually signifies.
“Help us just understand a little bit more about what those words mean and if they are true limitations because as you know many of us believe that those words are so malleable to actually not be limitations at all,” Murphy asked.
After a long pause, Secretary Kerry admitted there was some leeway in the definition, but attempted to offer some specifics.
“Enduring in our mind means no long-term offensive combat of a large scale. We’re not asking you for authorization to build up to a new Iraq or a new Afghanistan,” Kerry said. “When a large number – a battalion or whatever – of forces are directed to go have a firefight with ISIL in a proactive way, that’s offense, and that’s prohibited, and that’s not what we’re seeking to do.”
According to the secretary, the administration is considering the view of lawmakers who supported the 2001 AUMF, but did not intend for it to be used to underpin more than a decade of military misadventure around the world.
“The President wants to make certain that those who feel burned by prior votes or by prior experiences are not fearful that he is somehow opening Pandora’s box to that possibility again,” he said.
Kerry, however, cautioned against seeking a too rigid definition of the prohibition on “enduring offensive ground combat operations.”
“I’m not going to suggest to you that there isn’t in any terminology latitude for interpretation because there always is, unless there’s an absolute horrendously prescriptive, broad prohibition which everyone would counsel against,” he said, either unaware or dismissive of voices within Congress who are asking for explicit prohibitions on ground forces in any new AUMF.
Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Mike Honda (D-Calif.) have proposed an alternative AUMF that, in clear language, bars the deployment of US ground troops.
Lee was the only lawmaker in both the House and Senate to oppose the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force–one that targeted individuals, groups, and governments responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and has since been used to justify US military action around the world, including military strikes against ISIL over the past 6 months.
At the beginning of Tuesday’s hearing, Kerry was asked by the committee’s Chairman, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), if he still believed the 2001 AUMF allows the president to continue military operations against ISIL, even as the administration seeks a brand new authority for the latest campaign.
“We believe we have the authority under the 2001 [authorization], absolutely,” Kerry said.
Other administration officials, however, have contradicted the Secretary’s assurances. The Sentinel reported earlier this month on testimony from Nicholas Rasmussen, the new Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who told Senators that he didn’t believe that ISIL was covered under the 2001 AUMF.
In seeking its new authorization for force, the Obama administration isn’t seeking to wind up the controversial 2001 AUMF – a move that effectively makes the push for ISIL-specific legislation irrelevant.
