Walter Pincus: Congress must not dodge its military duties
By WALTER PINCUS Washington Post
11/19/2014 6:02 PM Updated 11/20/2014 12:02 AM
Congress needs to stop ducking and dodging.
It has a responsibility to join with President Obama in authorizing and funding the U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria for this fiscal year.
It’s also time for the nation to hear a serious, nonpartisan discussion about whom we are fighting in the Middle East and why. Obama and his top military advisers say the fight will last for at least three or four years. But for most Americans, this is a passing YouTube-like experience.
Fewer than 1 percent of the country’s men and women have served in the post-Sept. 11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Syria.
Pincus
In 13 years of fighting, Americans have not been asked to pay a war tax to cover the tab, which is in the trillions of dollars.
For three months, U.S. service personnel have been risking their lives in the fight against the Islamic State. Meanwhile, politicians have kept silent or been armchair generals. Obama’s approach is too weak or too strong.
But key deadlines are coming, and the Islamic State and other jihadists are not going to stop their suicide bombings in Iraq or their slaughter of opponents in Syria while Republicans get organized for the 114th Congress in January.
The lame-duck Congress can’t be so lame. It must act before Dec. 11, when the fiscal 2015 continuing appropriations joint resolution runs out.
Legislators not only must extend core Pentagon funding into next year, but also vote the additional $5.6 billion that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel requested last week for the overseas contingency operations account to pay for the stepped-up U.S. activities against the Islamic State.
The Pentagon also needs to extend legislative authorization for the $500 million program to train and equip vetted Syrian moderate forces, a request Obama first sent to Congress in June and whose temporary approval also runs out Dec. 11.
Obama needs to do more than explain his program – which I believe is the correct one. It includes coalition support featuring Arab countries, and U.S.-led programs that offer training, equipment and military assistance.
He must send to Congress his own draft of what should be a congressional authorization for the use of force in this new situation.
Why get tangled up in distracting and eventually irrelevant arguments over constitutional authority and the War Powers Act? A president sending U.S. forces into harm’s way needs public backing represented through an authorization resolution approved by Congress.
President George H.W. Bush did it in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and President George W. Bush did it for Afghanistan and Iraq.
Obama can protect his executive powers by writing his own draft and controlling any changes Congress may make.
The Congressional Research Service made its suggestions for an authorization resolution. On Syrian training, it suggested including things such as: Who should receive such U.S. training and assistance? What criteria should Congress insist upon for the vetting of participants?
These were not abstract questions.
Neither Obama nor Congress should allow the requirement for a new authorization to drag on. Tens of thousands of U.S. service personnel are in the Middle East carrying on this fight. They deserve to know that not only the president and their military leaders support the effort, but also Congress and the American people.
That’s the way the system is supposed to work.
Walter Pincus writes for the Washington Post.
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