Article updated below.
In its quest to gain congressional authorization for the ongoing war against the Islamic State, the White House is this week seeking explicit legislative approval to deploy US ground troops to Iraq and Syria, according to The Hill.
A congressional aide told the paper that President Obama wants Congress to only ban “enduring offensive ground operations” in the fight against the Islamic State–a move that would greatly increase the probability of mission creep.
The term is designed to gain the support of both hawkish and dovish lawmakers, while giving the administration flexibility in an Islamic State-specific authorization for the use of military force (AUMF).
As The Sentinel reported in December, the administration wants an AUMF that would grant the Pentagon wiggle room with respect to the use of ground troops, geographic and time constraints, and the “associated forces” that US personnel would be allowed to target.
The administration is going to seek authorization this week, roughly along those lines, for three years, The Guardian reported. It had previously sought a three-year AUMF “with an extension in the event that circumstances require it.”
The lack of some clear mission limits, however, has disturbed lawmakers, who have intoned that the administration is indifferent to concerns about endless war.
“If we’re gonna give you authority to deal with everything we don’t know about, then we might as well repeal the War Powers Act, and change the Constitution,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) told Secretary of State John Kerry at a December Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “You can always come back to Congress and seek additional authorization.”
At the hearing, Kerry argued that the US is “not about to start a third war,” and relied on an old foe in justifying the current action that was launched last year without the express consent of Congress.
“Osama Bin Laden started this on 9/11 in 2001, and he has continued it, in absentia, obviously,” he said, arguing that the AUMF passed after the attacks last decade on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon gave the administration the legal justification it needed in September to launch attacks against the Islamic State.
Lawmakers who voted for that approval in 2001 have said that they disagree with the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law.
While the White House is likely to win over lawmakers across the aisle with its refusal to rule out boots on the ground, one leading conservative told The Hill he still has questions about the language of the administration’s proposal.
“It’d be interesting to know exactly what that enduring means. But I have to see it,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told the paper that Republicans would be meeting on Wednesday evening to discuss the AUMF sought by the White House.
The proposal, expected to be sent to Congress this week, would repeal a 2002 AUMF that justified the war in Iraq. But it would not repeal the 2001 War on Terror authorization that the administration has used to justify the ongoing campaign.
Last year, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then under the chairmanship of Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), retroactively approved of military operations against the Islamic State in a bill that contained a 2001 AUMF sunset amendment. That legislation also restricted the use of ground forces.
The administration, however, is going to uphold the committee’s definition of associated forces as ““individuals and organizations fighting for or on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or a closely-related successor entity,” The Guardian reported.
Both Corker and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) hinted they would support the legislation coming from the White House, an indication that it will pass the Republican-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
UPDATE: A previous version of this article did not note the three-year limit or details about what constitutes “associated forces” in the AUMF proposed by the administration.
UPDATE II: The administration on Wednesday morning released the text of the AUMF it wants Congress to approve. It includes a request to conduct military operations that “shall terminate three years after the date of the enactment of this joint resolution, unless reauthorized” and, as expected, does not contain any geographic limitations. Read the text of the draft authorization here.
